How Whorl works
Whorl is a workspace where people and AI agents do their work together, in the open. The unit of work is a shared Thread. Instead of sending a document around, you share the Thread that wrote it, and a teammate tells the agent what to change.
Anything you can do in Whorl, an agent can do too, with your access and nothing more. That one rule explains most of how Whorl is built.
The parts
| Part | What it is |
|---|---|
| Organization | Your company or group. It owns the people, the Spaces and the connection to Microsoft 365. |
| Space | The only container. Threads, Captains, Notes, Automations and Files each belong to one Space. |
| Thread | One lasting conversation and unit of work, with an agent, its own folder in Files and its own Environment. |
| Captain | A named, lasting AI teammate for a whole Space, with one shared conversation that never ends. |
| Crew | The ordinary Threads a Captain starts for longer work. |
| Note | A rich-text page that people and agents edit together, live. |
| Files | A Space's one tree of folders and files, with every version kept. |
| Digest | The panel beside a Thread or Captain that shows where its work stands. |
| Environment | The replaceable computer where a Thread's agent runs code and tools. |
Organization
An Organization is the security and ownership boundary for people, Spaces and Connectors. Every person in it has one of three roles: owner, admin or member. See Members and invitations.
Spaces
A Space is the only container for work, and it is also the access boundary. Everyone in a Space sees everything in it. There are three kinds:
- Company Space. Every member of the Organization is in it.
- Personal Space. One person's, and private to them for good.
- Shared Space. A Space with its own members and owners.
Nothing is shared more narrowly than its Space. A Thread you start in a Shared Space is visible to everyone in that Space, and there is no way to share a single Thread with one person. See Spaces and Who can see what.
Threads
Start a Thread with a prompt, files and a folder of the Space. The agent works in the Thread's Environment and saves what it makes to the Thread's own folder in Files. Teammates can open the same Thread, send messages and watch the agent work live. You can leave the Thread and come back days later to find the work continued.
Captains
A Captain is a teammate for a whole Space rather than an assistant for one person. Everyone in the Space talks to it in one shared conversation. It follows up, watches for answers and keeps routines running when nobody is talking to it, and it starts Crew Threads for longer work. See Captains.
Agents act with your access
An agent acts for exactly one person: whoever sent the message or started the work. It gets that person's access, and not one permission more. This has three consequences:
- When a teammate steers your Thread, the agent uses their access for that message, never your personal keys or connections.
- A Captain in a Company or Shared Space uses only the Space's content and tools, never anyone's personal tools. A Captain in a Personal Space has one person to act for, so it has every tool its owner has.
- Owners and admins manage the Organization, but they cannot open Spaces they are not in or anyone's Personal Space.
Whorl enforces this in one place, so it holds for the web app and for agents alike. Access is live: when someone leaves a Space, they lose access to its content at once, and their running Automations stop.
Setup is files
Instructions, skills, tools and plugins are plain files. They stack in layers: Company, then Personal, then Space, then a Captain's own folder. The closest layer wins. See How agent setup works.
Where to go next
- Quickstart walks you through a first Thread.
- Threads and Captains cover the two kinds of agent work.
- Who can see what states the access rules in full.