Skip to main content

Communication and Channels

The gateway is the core of the autonomous company story.

It provides:

  • thread resolution so external conversations map to the right Codebolt thread
  • agent routing so incoming requests reach the correct virtual employee
  • response delivery so the agent can answer back on the originating platform

That makes it suitable as the communication backbone for:

  • Telegram or other messaging platforms via channel plugins
  • project systems that call into Codebolt via webhooks
  • internal tools that need request/response style agent handling
  • monitoring systems that emit structured events

Why the gateway matters​

Companies usually want a worker identity that persists even while interfaces change. A support employee may start in Telegram, later move to Slack, and eventually also exist in a custom company UI.

The Routing Gateway supports that model by separating:

  • the worker identity
  • the incoming source
  • the thread strategy
  • the outbound reply path

Channel-native employees​

A virtual employee can live in Telegram, Slack, Discord, Teams, or another platform and behave like a persistent team member. Messages enter through a channel plugin, are routed by the gateway, and stay attached to the right thread strategy.

Use this when you want:

  • a support or operations employee reachable from chat
  • one employee per customer conversation
  • one employee per team channel

See Chat Platforms and Building a Channel Plugin.

Plugin-backed company surfaces​

The existing Telegram plugin is a concrete example of this pattern. It registers itself as a channel, sends incoming messages into plugin.gateway.routeMessage(...), and receives outbound replies through plugin.gateway.onReply(...).

That adapter model is exactly what you want when a virtual employee must exist on external communication platforms without hardcoding those platforms into the core server.

Project-tool communication​

Not all company communication is chat. Sometimes the "conversation" happens inside:

  • Linear issues
  • GitHub pull requests
  • Jira tickets
  • Notion pages

Those flows still fit the same model. The source is different, but the employee still needs a route in, a thread strategy, and a route back out.