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Internal notes on conversations

Written by , Founder, AskVault · Reviewed by Aashiq
Last updated: · 3 min read

What internal notes are for

Three patterns where internal notes carry real value:

  1. Context handoff. Agent A handled the first round, snoozed for the customer to reply. Agent B picks it up days later. The internal note tells B what to know.
  2. Escalation reasoning. When escalating to engineering or billing, the note explains why and what the customer's specific situation is.
  3. Process documentation. Patterns or unusual cases worth flagging for postmortem review. "This customer found a workflow bug that bypassed our paywall. Eng investigating."

Internal notes never reach the customer. Different from chat messages (which the customer sees) and different from tags (which are short labels rather than narrative).

How to add a note

Three paths.

From the conversation header.

  1. Open the conversation in Live Chat inbox.
  2. Click the Add Note button (often labeled with a paperclip or 📝 icon).
  3. Type the note. Markdown supported.
  4. Submit.

Keyboard shortcut.

N opens the note composer on the focused conversation. Type, press Cmd/Ctrl+Enter to submit.

API.

Terminal window
curl -X POST https://api.askvault.co/v1/conversations/conv_xxx/notes \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ak_xxx" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"content": "Customer is on Enterprise trial; bump priority."}'

The note appears in the conversation timeline within seconds, marked clearly as agent-only.

Note structure

Each note has:

  • Content. Markdown-supported text. Up to 4,000 characters.
  • Author. The agent or API key that created it.
  • Created timestamp.
  • Mentions. @-mentioned team members get notified via email or Slack.
  • Attachments (optional). File uploads up to 10 MB each.

Notes are append-only. Once submitted you can't edit or delete (audit trail integrity). For corrections, add a follow-up note.

@-mentioning

Mention team members with @email@yourco.com or @firstname (if the firstname is unambiguous):

@sarah@yourco.com Can you check if this customer's billing is in good standing? Their last invoice failed three days ago.

The mentioned user gets a notification. Configure notification channels per user under Settings > Notifications:

  • Email (default).
  • Slack (if your Slack integration is connected).
  • In-app only (silent except for the in-app indicator).

Multiple mentions in one note are fine. All mentioned users get the notification.

Markdown support

Notes accept Markdown:

  • Bold and italic.
  • Bullet lists.
  • Numbered lists.
  • inline code.
  • fenced code blocks for log snippets or error messages.
  • Links: [link text](https://yoursite.co/path).

Useful for pasting error stack traces, configuration excerpts, or links to internal docs.

Note visibility

Three layers of visibility:

  • Same team. Anyone with workspace access can see notes on conversations they have permission to view.
  • Audit scope. Admins can see notes on any conversation in the workspace, even ones they didn't claim.
  • Never visible to customers. Internal notes don't render in any customer-facing surface.

Notes are subject to your workspace's audience-tag rules. A note on an HR-tagged conversation is visible only to verified HR-team users.

Audit logging

Every note creation is logged with author, timestamp, and content hash. Retained for the conversation's retention period (365 days standard, 6 years Enterprise).

Useful for:

  • Internal compliance. Proving who knew what when.
  • Postmortem. Reconstructing the team's investigation timeline.
  • Training. New hires learning from senior agents' real-world handling.

When NOT to use internal notes

Three anti-patterns:

  • Personal observations about the customer. Don't write things you wouldn't want the customer to read if they FOIA'd the data. Notes are technically internal but a discovery process could surface them.
  • Storing sensitive identifiers. Credit card numbers, government IDs, etc. Notes aren't PCI scope. Use the appropriate field on the customer record.
  • Replacing real documentation. Notes are conversation-specific. If a process pattern keeps recurring, write a real doc and have the bot retrieve from it.

Notes vs internal messages

Some teams confuse notes with internal-only chat messages:

  • Internal note. A timestamped annotation on the conversation. Doesn't render in any channel.
  • Internal message. A message tagged "internal" that some inbox UIs render in the conversation thread but skip when sending to the channel. AskVault uses notes; we don't have a separate internal-message type.

If you need a private discussion thread, use Slack and link to the AskVault conversation.

Limits

  • Per-note length. 4,000 characters.
  • Per-conversation note count. No hard cap, but more than 50 notes per conversation suggests the conversation should be split.
  • Attachment size. 10 MB per file.

Common pitfalls

Note written in customer-facing language. Habit from typing customer replies. Re-read before submitting; phrase notes for your team.

Sensitive content in notes. If a customer requests data deletion, notes containing their info also delete. Don't put info in notes you can't lose.

@-mention overload. Mentioning many people on every note is noisy. Mention only the person you need a response from.

Notes used as task tracker. Tasks belong in a real project-management tool. Notes are context, not action items.

FAQ

Can the bot create internal notes?

Yes. Some skills (escalate_to_human, sentiment_router) automatically add notes with reasoning when they fire. Useful for context handoff.

Are notes searchable?

Yes. Full-text search across notes available under Inbox > Search > Include Notes.

Can I export all notes for a customer?

Yes. The conversation export includes all notes. Per-customer export pulls notes from every conversation matching that customer email.

Can customers see notes if they request a data export?

Internal notes are part of the customer's conversation data and would surface in a Right-to-Access (GDPR Article 15) request. Phrase notes accordingly.

Does the bot read internal notes when generating responses?

No. Bot operates on the customer-visible message history only. Internal notes don't influence retrieval or generation.

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