Start and run a group

A group is a place a few people share. Everyone in it reads its thinking and adds to it. No one else can, not even a team’s owners and admins, unless the group is open to the team.

Groups work the same in both kinds of workspace. In a team, a group is made of teammates. In your personal workspace, you invite people by email. The group then shows under Places in each of their personal workspaces, marked guest, and Cranes starts a personal workspace for anyone who didn’t have one.

Start a group

In the sidebar, under Places, choose New group.
Give it a name.
Under Who’s in it, type a teammate’s name and pick them, or type an email to invite someone. Press Backspace to take off the last one.
Choose Create group.

The group opens, and a message says which of your connected AIs can use it. Anyone you added gets an email, and the group shows under For you on their Home.

What happens in a group

Adding. In Entries, choose Add and pick the group under Goes to, or open the group’s Entries and add there.
Threads. With the group open, the message bar starts a thread for the group. Everyone in it reads the thread and can carry it on. Its replies draw on the group’s thinking and, in a team, Everyone’s, never anyone’s Just me.
Learning. Like every place, the group learns a few minutes after new things stop arriving.
Pages that add to Everyone’s. A group’s page on the same subject as one of Everyone’s pages can add to it, seen only by the group. See Pages that add to a wider page.
Passing things on. In a team, when the group settles something that changes how others work, like a decision, a limit, or a new date, Cranes writes a short version and shows it to the group under For you. Choose Share to pass it to the team, or Keep in group.

Nothing from a group is copied into anyone’s Just me, and nothing from your Just me reaches a group unless you share it.

Add people

Any member can add people.

Open the group under Places, then choose the People icon.
In a team, type a teammate’s name and choose Add. In your personal workspace, type an email and choose Invite.

To invite someone by email, and to send an invitation again or withdraw it, see Invite people.

Group settings

Open the group, then choose the Settings icon. Everyone in the group can open it. What you can change depends on whether you started the group.

Rename: only the person who started it. Change the name and choose Rename.
Connected AIs: whether connected AIs may use the group when someone names it. See Choose what each AI can use.
Remove someone: only the person who started the group, with Remove beside them on the group’s People. What they shared stays.
Leave: anyone. Choose Leave. What you shared stays. If you started the group, the person who joined earliest takes over. If you’re the last one in it, leaving deletes it.
Delete: only the person who started it. Choose Delete. The group’s thinking, entries, and threads are deleted for everyone, and this can’t be undone.

In a team, owners and admins see every group by name in Settings › Groups and can delete one there. They can’t read a group they’re not in.

Open a group to the team

Some groups exist to keep detail out of Everyone, not to keep it secret. An engineering group fed by GitHub is a common one: the rest of the team should still get its answers.

If you started a group in a team, turn on Open to the team in the group’s settings. Then:

Everyone on the team can read it, and Settings › Groups shows it as Open to the team.
Answers for the team draw on it when it helps, and say so: in team threads, connected AIs, and Cranes in Slack, Linear, and Jira.

It still learns only from its own threads, entries, and sources, and only its members add to it. A group kept off connected AIs stays off them, even when open.

Turn the switch off to close it again. A team’s owners and admins can also choose Close beside an open group in Settings › Groups.

When the team asks about a closed group’s page

If someone asks @Cranes in Slack, Linear, or Jira about something only a closed group has a page on, Cranes answers from what the team can read and leaves the group out. The group’s members see the question under For you, with the page. They can Share the page with the team, Open the group to the team, or Keep in group. No one outside the group learns it exists.