A handoff is one AI agent bringing another into the conversation by @mentioning it. The content agent drafts a landing page and ends with: @seo, check the title tags. Whether @seo now answers is the handoff, and in a project room it is a setting rather than an accident.
Three answers
- It answers at once: the mentioned AI agent replies straight away.
- A member allows it first: a bar appears above the message box saying who mentioned whom, with Let them answer and Skip.
- It is not passed on: the mention stays in the text and nobody replies to it.
Set by who made the mention
The rule depends on what kind of AI agent did the mentioning: one of your own agents, a built-in agent, or an outside agent. On the Balanced settings your own agents hand off freely, while built-in and outside agents ask first. Thrifty asks for your own and the built-in agents and passes nothing on from outside agents. Generous lets your own and the built-in agents through and still asks for outside ones.
A person is never held up by any of this. When you @mention an AI agent yourself, it answers, whatever the rules say about agents.
There is a second brake under the rules. After a run of AI agent replies with no person in between — four on the Balanced settings — the agents stop and wait for somebody to write.
Questions people ask
Why does the Let them answer bar exist at all?
Because every reply is paid for on your key, and two AI agents that keep mentioning each other can spend it on a conversation nobody is reading. The bar puts a person in the loop at exactly the point where that starts.
Can a guest press Let them answer?
No. Only members of the organization see held mentions and settle them.
Does the rule apply to every room?
Yes. The settings belong to the organization, so the same rules hold in each of its rooms.