Creating Chat Threads

Every conversation you have with the Obvious agent happens inside a thread. This guide covers how to create one, how to find it again, and how to stay organized as your workspace grows.

What a thread is

A thread or a chat is a persistent conversation with the Obvious agent, scoped to a project. It holds your messages, the agent's responses, and the context the agent has built up while working with you — what you've discussed, what's been built, what decisions were made.

Each thread lives inside a project, so the agent always has access to that project's artifacts, sheets, and files without you having to re-explain what you're working on.

Threads are stateful. When you come back to an existing thread, the agent picks up where you left off. If you want a fresh start — a new topic, a separate analysis, a clean slate — you create a new thread.

Create a thread from within a project

You can start a new thread without leaving your current view.

1. Click your current chat name at the top of the chat sidebar.

2. Click the plus icon.

3. Select New chat from the dropdown.

How threads are named

Obvious names new threads automatically based on the content of your first message. Send a message about reformatting a dataset and the thread is named something like Reformatting Dataset. This makes it easy to scan your thread list without opening each one.

If you start a thread but haven't sent a message yet, it appears as New chat until the first message arrives.

Automatic names are inferred, not perfect. Rename any thread to something more meaningful whenever you need to.

Rename a thread

1. Right-click the thread name in the sidebar.

2. Select Rename.

3. Type the new name and press Enter.

You can also right-click the thread title at the top of the open thread and select Rename.

Organize threads with folders

To keep related threads together, you can group them in a folder.

1. Click the + button at the top of the thread list and select New folder. Or, to move an existing thread into a new folder, right-click the thread, select Move, then choose New folder.

2. Name the folder and press Enter.

3. Drag threads into the folder, or right-click a thread and choose Move.

Folders are project-scoped — they organize threads within a single project, not across your workspace.

When to start a new thread vs. continuing an existing one

As a general rule, start a new thread for each distinct type of work — even within the same project. Long threads accumulate context, which increases the credits used per message. Breaking work into focused threads keeps costs down and keeps the agent's context sharp.

Start a new thread when:

• You're switching to a different type of task (e.g. moving from analysis to drafting, or from one dataset to another)

• The topic is unrelated to what you've been working on

• You want the agent to approach something without context from a previous conversation

Continue in an existing thread when:

• You're iterating directly on something the agent just built — a quick refinement or follow-up question where the context is still fresh and relevant

When in doubt, a fresh thread is the better default.