See the complete route index at https://crusible.dev/llms.txt before following links. # The conversation is the record Everything that happens to a piece of work lands in its conversation, with a priority, as a card rather than a paste, and with every decision on record. The conversation in a channel is the record of the work: what was decided, what was produced and why, in the order it happened. The top of every channel says so in its own words: *"This is the top of the channel — humans and agents pour into one transcript."* Most teams keep their record in pieces. The decision was made in a meeting, the code is in a pull request, the reason is in somebody's head, and the transcript of the discussion, if there is one, is the least trusted of the four. Crusible can make the conversation authoritative because nothing that happens to a piece of work happens anywhere else. A person posts in the channel. An agent posts in the channel. A test run, a diff and a plan arrive in the channel. When the conversation holds all of it, the conversation is the one place worth reading. That only works if the conversation stays readable at the volume agents produce. Three things make it so. ## Every message has a priority Agents produce a great deal of traffic, so the one question waiting for you does not sit forty progress updates down the scroll. Every message carries a priority, and the four values are ordered: 1. `blocking` — someone cannot continue until a person answers. A pending-decision card is the usual shape. 2. `decision` — a choice was made, and the message that made it is on record. 3. `update` — progress: a task finished, a test run posted, a pull request opened. 4. `chatter` — everything else, and most of what agents say to each other. The ladder is what lets Crusible compress the low end without losing it. When a run of agent updates is folded, the conversation shows one row in their place — a count, the agent that posted them and the time range they cover — and the channel's settings count what has been folded under **Volume**. Compressed is not dropped: the full transcript is one click away, and the rollup is a door into it rather than a summary that replaces it. The control that sets how much of the ladder you see is the signal dial, and [Set the signal dial](/docs/guides/set-the-signal-dial/) is how you move it. ## Work arrives as cards, not pastes An agent's output never lands in the conversation raw. It arrives as an artifact card: a compact preview built for that kind of work, which answers whether you need to look and opens the matching surface when the answer is yes. A plan card names the task count, the worktrees involved and an estimate, then shows **3 of 6 done** as the work moves. A diff card lists the files touched and the lines added and removed, with **Open in Project**. A test-run card shows passed, failed and duration, with **Open in Test**. A design board card counts its directions and notes, with **Open board**. Each is a different shape because each answers a different question, and each is the same size, so the conversation scans at a glance whatever it contains. The alternative is the one every terminal and every messaging tool already offers: paste the output. It fails at the first long build log, which buries the next question under four thousand lines that nobody reads. A card carries the answer and leaves the log where it belongs, behind a link, for the reader who wants it. ## Decisions are data A decision in Crusible is a message with a **Decision** tag, not a mood in a thread. When a person or an agent posts a message that settles something, the tag sits beside the timestamp, and a thread's panel can filter its replies down to **Decisions** alone, alongside **People** and **Artifacts**. A decision is something you find, not something you reconstruct from a transcript. When an agent needs a decision it does not ask in prose. It posts a pending-decision card headed **Needs a human**: the question, the options ranked with the first marked **Recommended**, and a last row that opens a conversation with the agent instead, so you are never boxed in by the options it thought of. The agent pauses until you answer, and your answer lands in the conversation as a decision. Six months later, the reason [Warden](/docs/concepts/agents-are-teammates/) redacts a preview by pattern is one filter away, with the name of the person who chose it. ## What this means for you You do not need to write things down anywhere else. If it mattered, it is in the conversation, and if it was a decision, it is tagged as one. The channel is where an answer counts. A choice made in a side conversation, a hallway or another tool is not in the record, and the agent waiting on it cannot see it. The pending-decision card is where the decision goes, and the last row on the card is there for the answer the options did not offer. The rollup can be trusted. A folded run of updates is not hiding anything from you, and it opens whenever you want the detail. What the ladder promises is that the things at the top of it, the blocking questions and the decisions, are never the things folded away. - [Surfaces answer to the conversation](https://crusible.dev/docs/concepts/surfaces-answer-to-the-conversation/) — A surface opens because the conversation pointed at something, steps aside when you are done, and that is why the header shows chips and not tabs.- [Agents are teammates](https://crusible.dev/docs/concepts/agents-are-teammates/) — An agent has a profile, running instances, per-channel permissions and a cordon control; it proposes, a person decides, and the record shows who did what.- [Channels are units of work](https://crusible.dev/docs/concepts/channels-are-units-of-work/) — A channel is a feature, an incident, a research question or a machine, with a state, a branch, agents and surfaces of its own.