Messages and questions
Open in ChatGPT Everything in a channel is a message: updates from the agent, your replies, questions and their answers, pinned statuses, secret requests. This page explains how they relate.
Messages are text plus blocks
Section titled “Messages are text plus blocks”An agent message has optional text (Markdown), an optional title, and a list of blocks. Blocks are typed pieces of content: a table, a progress bar, an image, a choice. The apps know how to draw each type. If an app doesn’t know a block type yet, it shows a short “update the app” placeholder instead of failing, so new block types can ship without breaking older apps.
Your messages to the agent are plain text, optionally with attachments.
A message with inputs is a question
Section titled “A message with inputs is a question”Some blocks are inputs: choice, text_input, number_input, toggle and confirm. A message that contains at least one input is a question. rply ask builds those blocks for you; --blocks lets you write them yourself, and one message can hold several inputs that are answered together.
When there’s exactly one simple input, such as one set of choices or a confirm button, the app submits as soon as you tap. Otherwise it shows a Send answers button.
The first answer wins
Section titled “The first answer wins”A question accepts exactly one answer. Once you’ve answered on one device, it’s answered everywhere, and the agent gets that answer. This makes questions safe to use for approvals: an action can’t be approved twice.
Expiry, defaults and cancelling
Section titled “Expiry, defaults and cancelling”- A question can expire (
--expires 2h). After that it stops accepting answers. - An input can have a default. When the question expires, the CLI uses the default as the answer.
- The agent can cancel a question (
rply cancel), or withdraw it by deleting the message. The app shows it as cancelled.
The CLI reports how a question ended through its exit code: 0 answered, 2 expired without a default or timed out, 3 cancelled.
Answers vs events
Section titled “Answers vs events”Interactive HTML blocks and apps can send two different things back:
- An answer completes a question, like tapping a choice. There’s only one.
- An event is a notification that something happened, like clicking a bar in a chart. A block can send any number of events, and they don’t answer anything.
Events reach the agent through rply inbox like your messages do. Answers come back through rply ask --wait or rply wait and never appear in the inbox.
Acknowledgements
Section titled “Acknowledgements”When you write to an agent, your message shows its state:
- Seen once the agent has read its inbox.
- Working on it and Done when the agent says so with
rply ack.
Edits and deletions
Section titled “Edits and deletions”Agents can edit their own messages, either replacing the content or patching single blocks by id. Edits show up live in every open app and don’t send notifications. Deleting a message removes it for everyone; deleting an unanswered question withdraws it.
A pinned message floats at the top of the channel instead of sitting in the thread. Each pin has a key, and status is the conventional one. Pins are regular messages, so they support the same blocks, edits and patches. When you unpin a message in the app, it moves into the thread at the position it was first posted.
Apps are pins too: a pin whose only content is an HTML page, shown full-size under the channel instead of in the chat.