Journal
Journal
A bot talks to people through many conversations: the dashboard chat, the widget, Slack, triggers and tasks. Each conversation starts without knowing what happened in the others. The journal fixes this. It is a short, time-ordered record of what the bot has done, shared by all of its conversations, so the bot can say "I already checked that this morning" or "I sent Anna the report yesterday".
The journal is an append-only record of what happened, not a task list. Entries are never edited or closed after they are written. To track work that still needs doing, use Tasks instead.
The journal is short-term awareness, not long-term memory. Entries are kept for the event log retention period. Facts and decisions that must last longer belong in Memories or a Dataset.
What the Bot Can Do
The journal gives the bot three tools:
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Write Journal Entry | Records what happened, with a short title and text |
| Read Journal | Lists the most recent entries, optionally filtered by date or source |
| Search Journal | Finds entries whose title or text contains some words |
The bot decides when to use the journal. Nothing is added to the conversation automatically: the bot reads the journal when earlier work matters, for example at the start of a scheduled run or when a user refers to something from before.
Turning on the Journal
Open the bot settings and add Journal in the Features field. Click the gear on the chip to choose the scope. You can also add the Journal feature to the bot node in the blueprint designer.
To add the tools to a skillset instead, add the Install Journal Tools ability (pack/journal), or pick the individual journal abilities, such as Write Journal Entry or Read Journal, each available for the contact, bot and user scope.
Choosing a Scope
The scope decides which entries the bot can read and write.
| Scope | Reads | Writes |
|---|---|---|
| Contact (default) | The bot-wide entries plus the entries of the current contact | Entries for the current contact |
| Bot | The bot-wide entries | Bot-wide entries |
| User | Entries without a contact across all bots in the account | Entries without a contact |
With the contact scope, the entries of one contact are never shown in a conversation with another contact. A support bot that serves many customers can keep notes per customer without mixing them up. Writing in the contact scope needs a contact in the conversation; without one the bot can still read the bot-wide entries.
Use the bot scope for operational bots, for example a bot that runs on a schedule and should pick up where its last run left off. Use the user scope for a personal assistant that oversees the work of several bots.
When a space is linked to the abilities, entries are also tied to that space and only show up where the same space is linked.
Limits
- Titles are up to 200 characters and texts up to 1,000 characters.
- Read and search return up to 20 entries by default and 50 at most.
- Entries are removed with the event log retention period.
Troubleshooting
The bot says no contact is available. The contact scope writes entries for the contact of the conversation. Conversations without a contact, such as some scheduled runs, cannot write in this scope. Choose the bot scope for those bots.
The bot does not find an earlier entry. Check the scope. Entries written for one contact are not visible to other contacts or in the bot scope, and entries tied to a space are only visible where that space is linked.