Communications Layer

All Conversations in One Place.

The Communications Layer unifies every channel of communication into a single surface. Messages, emails, meetings, announcements — all in one place, all linked to the work they relate to.

Design Principles

1. Channel agnostic — Every communication channel is treated equally
2. Work-linked — Every communication is linked to a work item
3. Spine-fed — Communications flow into the Spine as events and evidence
4. Searchable — Every communication is searchable across the organization
5. Governed — Communications respect the same policies as all other data

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Communication Channels

Channel	Description	Source
Team Chat	Internal team messaging	Slack, Teams, built-in
Customer Communications	External customer-facing messages	CRM, email, chat
Internal Updates	Status updates and announcements	Built-in, email
Email	Email integration and management	Gmail, Outlook
Meetings	Meeting notes, action items, follow-ups	Calendar, video
Announcements	Organization-wide communications	Built-in
AI / Human Hand-offs	Transitions between AI and human actors	Twin, Coworker

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Communication Flow

Channel → Normalization → Spine Event → Context Enrichment → Routing → Delivery

1. Channel — Communication arrives on any channel
2. Normalization — Converted to canonical Spine event format
3. Spine Event — Written to the Spine as an event with evidence
4. Context Enrichment — Linked to relevant work items, entities, and context
5. Routing — Directed to the appropriate recipient(s)
6. Delivery — Delivered through the appropriate channel

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Event Model

Every communication becomes a Spine event:

interface CommunicationEvent {
  id: string;
  tenantId: string;
  channel: 'team-chat' | 'customer' | 'email' | 'meeting' | 'announcement' | 'handoff';
  direction: 'inbound' | 'outbound' | 'internal';
  from: ActorRef;
  to: ActorRef[];
  subject?: string;
  body: string;
  attachments?: AttachmentRef[];
  workItemRef?: string;     // linked work item
  entityRef?: string;       // linked entity (account, contact, etc.)
  sentiment?: Sentiment;
  classification?: string;  // auto-classified category
  timestamp: string;
}

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Integration Points

Inbound (Source Systems → Communications Layer)

System	Integration
Slack / Teams	Real-time message sync
Gmail / Outlook	Email ingestion
CRM	Customer communication logging
Calendar	Meeting detection and notes

Outbound (Communications Layer → Target Systems)

System	Integration
Slack / Teams	Message sending
Gmail / Outlook	Email composition
CRM	Communication logging
Notification Services	Alert delivery

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Search & Discovery

All communications are indexed and searchable:

Feature	Description
Full-text search	Search across all channels
Entity scoping	Filter by account, contact, or entity
Work item scoping	Filter by linked work item
Time range	Filter by date range
Channel filter	Filter by communication channel
Sentiment filter	Filter by sentiment analysis

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AI Integration

The Communications Layer feeds the AI agents:

Agent	Usage
Twin	Reads communications for context, drafts responses
Coworker	Monitors for relevant updates, surfaces context
Domain Agents	Analyze communication patterns, detect issues

AI Capabilities on Communications

Capability	Description
Summarization	Auto-summarize long threads
Classification	Auto-categorize communications
Sentiment Analysis	Detect tone and urgency
Action Extraction	Extract action items from messages
Response Drafting	Draft responses for human review

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Governance

Rule	Description
Retention	Communications retained per organizational policy
Access Control	Role-based access to communication channels
Audit Trail	All communication actions are audited
Data Classification	Communications classified by sensitivity
Purpose Limitation	Communications used only for stated purposes