# Channel

A **channel** is a medium Connect communicates over: email, WhatsApp, SMS and voice. It is the unit that [autonomy](/docs/glossary/autonomy/) is set on, that [memory](/docs/glossary/memory/) has a tier for, and that a [follow-up](/docs/glossary/follow-up/) commits to. A channel is a medium, not the company that carries it — that is the [provider](/docs/glossary/provider/).

- **Status:** Available
- **Audience:** both
- **In the app:** #/autonomy
- **Last verified:** 2026-09-10
- **Canonical:** https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/glossary/channel/

## The four, and the two extra words around them

| Channel | Status | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| email | Available | Gmail, Microsoft Graph, and any IMAP/SMTP server |
| whatsapp | Available | Inbound webhook, person resolution, replies under the same rules |
| voice | Available | Inbound and outbound calls, two engines to choose between |
| sms | Foundation | Inbound and STOP handling exist; outbound needs a provider that carries SMS |
| softphone | Available | Calls a person makes from the browser, on one of the business's own lines |

SMS is the one to read carefully. Inbound handling, STOP and suppression are real; outbound depends on a provider that carries SMS, and the live carrier does not. The Phone screen says so rather than showing a thread that cannot send, which is the correct behaviour and the reason the status word here is *foundation* rather than *available*.

## Where the vocabulary is not uniform

This is the detail that trips up anyone reading two screens at once. The telephone channel is called **voice** where autonomy is set and **phone** where follow-ups choose a channel. It is one medium; the two words come from two modules that named it independently, and both are used in this manual where the surface being described uses them.

**voice** — The autonomy channel. Setting it to ask-before-send holds outbound calls.
**phone** — The follow-up channel, and the name of the screen. A dated commitment to ring somebody is a phone follow-up.
**any** — A follow-up channel only. It means the contact is owed and the medium is open.
**task** — A follow-up channel that is not a medium at all: work for a person, never sent by anything.
**softphone** — A channel value on the business's own routes, for a person's browser line rather than for Connect's own calls.

> **Note** If you are looking for a setting and cannot find it under one of these words, try the other. A rule set on voice governs the calls Connect makes; it does not govern what a person does with the softphone, which is a person acting rather than Connect acting.

## Channel, endpoint, provider, conversation

Four words describe one message's route and are constantly swapped for each other. The clean way to keep them apart is to ask what would change if you swapped the thing out.

| Word | Example | Swapping it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Channel | Email | The medium, and therefore what is possible at all |
| Endpoint | One [mailbox](/docs/glossary/mailbox/) or one number | Which of your addresses is involved |
| [Provider](/docs/glossary/provider/) | Gmail, or the [carrier](/docs/glossary/carrier/) | Nothing a reader sees, if the design is right |
| [Conversation](/docs/glossary/conversation/) | One exchange with one person | Which discussion the message belongs to |

The third row is the interesting one. Changing provider should be invisible downstream, and in Connect it is: what a provider stores lands in its own tables and is copied into the canonical records the engine and the screens read. The engine never reads a provider's tables, which is why adding one changes nothing after the bridge.

## Questions

### Can I turn one channel off without touching the others?

Yes — that is what the `off` autonomy mode does, per channel. Inbound handling for that channel stops being acted on rather than the workspace losing the history it already has.

### Is the softphone a channel Connect talks on?

No. It is how a person makes and takes calls on the business's lines from a browser. Connect's own calls are the voice channel, and the two are separately governed on purpose.

### Does memory apply per channel?

It has a channel tier, yes — the second of four, between the workspace and one endpoint. A direction that should hold for every email but not for calls belongs there rather than on the workspace.

## Related

- [Provider](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/glossary/provider/)
- [Mailbox](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/glossary/mailbox/)
- [Autonomy](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/glossary/autonomy/)
- [SMS in Connect](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/sms/)
- [WhatsApp in Connect](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/whatsapp/)

## What this page is based on

- `docs-source/facts.py` — CHANNELS with providers, notes and status
- docs-source/sources/GENERAL.md §5 and §7 — autonomy channels, follow-up channels
- docs-source/sources/GENERAL.md §3 — provider tables bridged to canonical records