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River AI

SpaceChat

SpaceChat is the AI sidebar in every Space. It's the fastest way to do anything in River — read documents, write drafts, search across your work, build Agents, run Workflows, and act on entities. It's a chat box, but it knows your whole Dataspace and can act on it.

Open SpaceChat#

Press Cmd J (or Ctrl J on Windows/Linux) anywhere in River. The sidebar slides in from the right. Press it again to dismiss.

Each Space has its own SpaceChat thread. Conversations stay scoped to the Space you're in — your project Space won't see your personal Space's history, and vice versa.

What it can do#

A non-exhaustive list, because SpaceChat can do almost anything in your Dataspace:

  • Read and summarize any open Window or selection
  • Search across your entire workspace ("find the latest investor update")
  • Create new entities ("draft a PRD for fraud signals")
  • Edit existing ones ("tighten the intro of this doc")
  • Run any registered tool ("send Maya a Slack DM")
  • Build Agents and Workflows ("make me an Agent that triages my inbox at 7am")
  • Run Skills and Workflows on the fly
  • Pull in data from your integrations ("show me Stripe revenue this month")
  • Open Windows, switch Spaces, navigate the workspace
  • Generate custom views and dashboards on the fly (see Custom Views)

If River can do it, you can probably ask SpaceChat to do it.

Three modes#

The mode selector controls how much SpaceChat is allowed to act. See Edit, Plan, and Ask for full detail.

  • Ask — discussion only, no mutations
  • Plan — produces a structured action plan and stops for review
  • Edit — executes changes

The three modes are how you stay intentional about AI autonomy.

What SpaceChat sees#

By default, SpaceChat has access to:

  • The entities currently open in your Windows
  • Your selection (if any) inside the active Window
  • Recent activity and conversation history
  • Your Dataspace's entity tree (via search)
  • Your connected integrations (via tools)

You can also explicitly attach entities to the conversation by dragging them into the chat or typing @ to reference them.

Multiplayer SpaceChat#

In a team Dataspace, SpaceChat is shared. Two teammates can be in the same Space at the same time, watching the AI work, dropping in instructions, and taking turns. The AI is a peer in the conversation.

Tips#

  • Use @ to attach a specific entity ("summarize @Q3 Investor Update").
  • Type / to see the available slash commands.
  • When SpaceChat does something useful, ask it: "make this an Agent." It will draft an Agent that does the same thing on a trigger or schedule.
  • Long task? Ask in Plan mode first, review the plan, then switch to Edit to execute.
  • If SpaceChat is misbehaving, the issue is almost always context — make sure the right entities are open or attached.