# Spaces and teams (https://optakt.ai/docs/spaces)

## Scopes and spaces [#scopes-and-spaces]

A **space** is one conversation with your agent. Your private chat with the bot is a space. So is each topic in a Telegram group. A space is created when its first message arrives.

An **agent scope** groups spaces around one agent, with its own Telegram bot, members, memory and archive, credentials and models.

Spaces in the same scope share memory and archive: what your agent learns in one conversation is available in the others. You can keep projects in separate conversations without cutting them off from that shared learning. Each space keeps its own conversation, files and, if you like, its own model.

Separate scopes isolate groups of spaces from one another, including their knowledge, credentials and membership. That can be useful when they must stay apart, but you also give up shared learning: what an agent learns in one scope is not available in another. For work that should build on the same knowledge, use different spaces within one scope.

## A space for every project [#a-space-for-every-project]

To work on several things in parallel, give each its own space:

- **In a private chat,** turn on topics for your bot in @BotFather. Each topic of the chat becomes a space of its own.
- **In a group,** turn on topics in the group's settings. Each topic becomes a space.

How many spaces you can have depends on your [plan](/docs/plans).

## Working as a team [#working-as-a-team]

1. **Add people.** The owner adds users in the [admin app](/docs/admin-app) under Users, with a name and an email. The app shows a four-word initial password, once; pass it on securely. Each person opens the admin app, logs in, and changes that password under Profile with `p`. Until then only Profile is available. They then link their own Telegram account, as in [First conversation](/docs/first-conversation). For a server, see [remote access](/docs/admin-app#from-another-computer).
2. **Make them members.** Under Members, add each user to the agent scope as `admin` or `member`. Admins manage the scope; members work with it.
3. **Bind a group.** Create a Telegram group, add the bot and make it an administrator. Then, under Integrations, select Telegram and press `b` to bind the group to the agent scope. One of the scope's admins must have linked their Telegram identity and be an administrator of the group too. A scope can bind one group.

If the bot loses its admin role, or no linked scope admin remains a group admin, the group's spaces are archived. Private conversations are not affected.

## Who can manage an agent [#who-can-manage-an-agent]

Scope admins manage membership, credentials, providers and models. The last admin cannot leave or be removed or demoted. Members can work with the agent but cannot change that setup.

The deployment owner can see every scope's bot and membership and can join a scope as an admin. He must join before seeing its spaces. Separate scopes keep knowledge apart during agent operation; they do not hide it from the person administering the deployment.

## Who starts work [#who-starts-work]

In a group, your agent reads every message as context, but only a member starts work, by mentioning the bot (`@your_bot`). A reply to the bot without the mention is read, not acted on. A message from someone who is not a member is kept and never acted on.

In a private chat, every message from a linked member starts work. Someone who is not a member is told to ask an admin.

Membership is managed in the admin app, never in Telegram.