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Work with one agent ​

An Anima agent is a durable teammate in Slack or Feishu. You give it work in the conversation where the work belongs, it uses the provider and tools available on its machine, and it reports back through an explicit chat action.

You do not need a prompt language. The useful skill is the same one you use with a capable colleague: state the outcome, explain why it matters, name the important boundaries, and stay available for decisions.

Choose the right conversation ​

Use the surface that matches the work:

  • DM the agent for a direct request or private context. A DM reaches it for certain.
  • Mention the agent in a channel when the work belongs to that group. The agent must be a member of the channel.
  • Continue in the same thread for follow-up context, review, and corrections. Once an agent is involved in a thread, later human or bot/app replies normally continue to reach it without another mention while that follow is unmuted. Agent-authored handoffs still need to mention their next owner because the follow may not exist or may be muted.

A direct mention still has a special job: it assigns attention. Use one when you are handing over ownership, when a reply must not be missed, or when the conversation has been quiet for a while.

The durable rules behind DMs, mentions, follows, and mutes are defined in Concepts.

Do-not-contact list ​

Agents on this host connected to this workspace will not DM or @mention these people. Channel messages are unaffected.

Here, “unaffected” means channel messages without a mention of a listed person; mentions in channel threads are refused too. Group DMs are refused if any member is listed. The rule covers anima message send, anima message update, anima ask (including its generated mention), and anima file send (including its caption). Literal mention tokens inside code do not count as mentions.

Open Server → Do not contact in the dashboard. Select a Slack workspace if more than one is connected, then choose Add member and search by name or @username. Check the member ID before confirming, especially for duplicate names. Removal also asks for confirmation because it lifts the restriction.

Anima selects a configured connection in that workspace and verifies its token's workspace before reading the Slack directory. Tokens stay on the server. This lookup does not send messages or wake an agent. If the directory is unavailable, saved IDs remain visible and restricted; use Retry lookup after repairing the connection. A disconnected workspace's saved list remains available for removal.

Changes take effect on the next Anima tool operation without a restart. The list applies to every agent in this Anima instance connected to that Slack workspace, not just the agent currently selected in the sidebar. It does not block incoming messages. What this blocks in the panel describes the enforced operations.

Alternatively, edit the root config.json in your ANIMA_HOME (normally ~/.anima/config.json), preserving its other settings:

json
{
  "doNotContact": {
    "T0123ABC": ["U0AAAA", "U0BBBB"]
  }
}

Use the Slack workspace ID (T…), not an Anima team ID. You can find it in the sending agent's configured Slack connection (slack.teamId). In Slack, open the person's profile, choose More, then Copy member ID to get their U… ID. Every agent in that workspace on this host uses the same entry. Deleting an agent does not remove the entry.

Save valid JSON to a temporary file beside config.json, preserve the original file permissions, and atomically replace the original (for example, with mv after checking the temporary file). The next tool send reads the updated policy; no agent restart is needed. Removing an ID permits contact again. An absent key or empty workspace list applies no contact restriction. Invalid or unreadable configuration refuses sending; repair the configuration before retrying.

A refusal exits with status 1, explains who requested no contact and what the agent should do, and appears in Activity as Send refused: do-not-contact list (anima.do_not_contact, not retryable). A recipient or group membership lookup failure also holds the send when the workspace list is non-empty, but reports it separately: anima.contact_unverified (retryable) names the channel ID and Slack error, says it is not a do-not-contact match, and appears in Activity as Send held: recipient could not be verified. A mistyped or truncated channel ID is the usual cause. An invalid policy file reports anima.contact_policy_config.

This is an Anima tool-layer constraint, not a security sandbox. List management is an operator dashboard feature, not an agent tool. Its endpoints use the dashboard's existing authentication setting; adding this UI does not introduce operator-only process isolation. Same-user shell access can still read or alter the file, and a directly used Slack token can bypass Anima's tools. The file is local to this host; operators must configure every host separately. Feishu is not covered.

Hand over an outcome ​

A good request gives the agent enough information to exercise judgment:

  1. Outcome. What should be true when the work is done?
  2. Reason. Why does the result matter, and who is it for?
  3. Boundaries. What must not change, which systems are in scope, and which decisions belong to you?
  4. Evidence. What should the agent run, inspect, render, or return so the result can be checked?

For example:

@milo The mobile file list is hard to scan. Rework the list page without changing desktop behavior. Show me 390px before and after renders, and keep the file data contract unchanged.

That is more useful than a long list of implementation steps. The agent owns the route from the request to the evidence. You own the product decision and any boundary only a person can authorize.

Read progress as evidence ​

For a small task, the agent may work silently and return the result. For longer work, expect a brief start notice, updates at real milestones or blockers, and a final handoff.

Useful updates answer one of four questions:

  • What fact did the agent establish?
  • What changed?
  • What is blocked?
  • What decision is needed from a person?

An agent can send a bounded ask when it needs one choice from a short list. Answering the ask resumes the work. Open-ended discussion stays in the conversation instead.

Plain provider output is not a message to the team. A reply exists only when the agent sends a message, file, reaction, or ask through Anima. This is why the Activity view can distinguish an internal step from an outward action.

Correct the work in place ​

When something is wrong, reply where the evidence lives:

  • quote the failed claim or point at the affected file;
  • name the behavior you expected;
  • mention the agent responsible for the next move;
  • ask for the proof that would make the correction credible.

The agent keeps the conversation context and can revise without a new briefing. For code and document work, a second agent should review the result before you accept it. The team pattern is covered in Run an agent team.

Make durable context explicit ​

Not every message should become memory. Tell the agent when a fact needs to survive:

  • A personal operating preference belongs in the agent's maintained memory. Say, "Remember that release changes always need a canary replay."
  • Long-lived detail for one agent belongs in notes under its agent home.
  • A decision or artifact the whole team needs belongs in a shared knowledge base or repository.
  • A repeatable portable workflow may be ready to become a skill.

The agent's provider context can compact or be replaced. Maintained memory and files survive that boundary. Asking an agent to remember something means it should write the fact into the appropriate durable layer, not merely acknowledge the message.

Ask for later work ​

An agent can persist a reminder for a later or recurring wake. Requests such as "check this after the deploy," "follow up Friday," or "run this every weekday morning" should become reminders rather than promises held only in the current conversation.

A reminder wakes the agent privately. It does not post by itself. When it fires, the agent re-evaluates the instruction in current context and takes any outward action explicitly. You can inspect active and past reminders in the dashboard.

Transfer a secret without pasting it ​

Do not paste API keys or other secrets into Slack or Feishu. Ask the receiving agent to create a sealed handoff. It sends a one-time link; you enter the value on handoff.meetanima.online; the page encrypts it in your browser; and you return the complete encrypted block to the same conversation.

The receiving agent chooses the destination key only when it accepts the block. The one-time private key stays on its machine and is destroyed after a successful acceptance. The link and ciphertext do not transfer provider login state, Slack or Feishu credentials, or other Anima-managed credentials.

The protocol and CLI commands are documented in Transfer a secret. The broader credential boundaries are in Security and data.

Use the dashboard for oversight ​

Conversation is where you work with an agent. The dashboard is where you inspect and operate it.

Open the dashboard when you need to:

  • see whether work is running, queued, retrying, or unhealthy;
  • inspect the Activity trail after a task;
  • review the channels the agent can see;
  • change its role, provider, team, owner, or transport setup;
  • browse its files, skills, and reminders;
  • stop current work, rotate a session, copy diagnostics, or perform recovery.

See Use the dashboard for the current surface and the consequences of each lifecycle action.

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