Internal notes

Internal notes are private messages on a conversation. The customer cannot see them. Your team can. Use them to coordinate, escalate, capture context, and hand off ownership.

How to add a note

Open any conversation. The composer at the bottom has two tabs: Reply and Note. Switch to Note. Type your note. Hit send.

The note appears in the thread, styled differently from customer-visible messages, with a clear "internal" indicator so no one confuses it with a real reply.

That's it. The customer's email thread, chat history, or Slack DM never receives the note.

Mentioning teammates

Type @ and start typing a name. Pick the teammate from the dropdown. The note becomes a mention. The mentioned user gets:

1. An in-app notification — Mentions filter count bumps.
2. An email (per-user preference).
3. A Slack DM if they have Slack DM notifications enabled.

See Mentions for the full mechanics.

When to write a note vs a reply

Notes are for any message that's for the team only:

• "I think this is a billing issue, looping in Sara."
• "Customer is on a paid plan, here is their MRR."
• "We saw this exact bug last week, here is the Linear issue."
• "Approving the refund, go ahead."
• "Don't auto-reply on this one, the AI got it wrong twice already."

Replies are for the customer. Always glance at the active tab before hitting send. Sending an internal-shaped message to a customer is a small disaster. Sending a customer-shaped message to your team is just confusing.

Notes and the AI agent

If the AI is in autopilot, internal notes are part of the context the AI sees, but the AI never replies in a note channel and never includes a note's content in a customer-facing reply.

Some teams use notes to steer the AI mid-conversation. Write "do not promise a refund" or "this customer is enterprise, escalate" and the AI will respect those instructions on the next draft. See AI brain.

Permissions

Anyone with agent role or higher can write notes. Viewers can read notes but not write them. Customers never see notes, regardless of role. See Roles permissions.

Notes in the export

Notes are included in conversation exports. If you're exporting data for a customer-facing reason like a GDPR access request, double-check the export options before sending the file.

A small etiquette guide

• Mention specifically. Mention the on-call person, not the whole team.
• Keep notes short. If you need three paragraphs, post a Linear issue and link it.
• Add a note when you reassign — the next agent saves time.
• Don't paste sensitive customer credentials into notes. They're stored, indexed, and exported with the conversation.

Related

• Mentions for the cross-team patterns.
• Inbox overview.