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Enable ambient mode

Ambient mode lets a Coworker Agent reply proactively in Slack threads where it has already been mentioned, without needing a new @-mention each time. This guide covers turning it on from the Settings tab.

Prerequisites​

Add bot event subscriptions​

Ambient mode requires two additional bot event subscriptions so the agent can monitor thread activity without being @-mentioned each time.

  1. Go to api.slack.com/apps and select the agent's Slack app.
  2. Click Event Subscriptions in the left sidebar.
  3. Under Subscribe to bot events, click Add Bot User Event and add:
    • message.channels: messages posted in public channels the bot has joined
    • message.groups: messages posted in private channels the bot has joined
  4. Click Save Changes.
  5. Slack prompts you to reinstall the app to apply the new permissions. Click reinstall your app.

Turn on ambient mode​

  1. Open the agent's detail page and go to the Settings tab.
  2. Find the Ambient card and toggle Enable ambient mode on.

The agent now watches threads it has been mentioned in. When new messages arrive in a thread, the agent evaluates whether a reply would be useful, so it doesn't respond to every message, only when it has something to contribute.

agent.yml reference​

The Ambient card writes to the ambient block in agent.yml. Edit it directly if you prefer:

ambient:
  enabled: true
  modes:
    - mentioned_threads

Next steps​