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Novu provides full observability for agent conversations across both managed agents and custom code agents. You can view and manage conversations in the Novu dashboard. Go to the Activity Feed page and switch to the Agent Conversations tab.

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Conversation lifecycle

Every agent conversation follows the same state machine, regardless of agent type:
Agent conversation lifecycle

Agent conversation lifecycle states: Active, Resolved, and Reopened.

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What the dashboard shows

Navigate to your agent’s detail page to see all conversations, their status, and a complete timeline of activity.
  • Conversation list: all conversations for the agent, with status (active / resolved), last message preview, message count, and last activity timestamp.
  • Full message history: every message exchanged between the user and the agent, including rich content (cards, markdown, files).
  • Metadata: key-value pairs stored on the conversation. In custom code agents, these are set via ctx.metadata.set(). In managed agents, the platform may store internal state.
  • Signal activity: a log of signals fired during the conversation (metadata changes, workflow triggers, resolve events). This applies to custom code agents that use signals.
  • Tool use activity: for managed agents, the dashboard shows which tools the agent called during each turn, including built-in tools and MCP servers.
  • Participant details: which subscribers and platform users are part of each conversation, with identity resolution status.
  • Platform context: which provider and thread the conversation is happening on.

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Inspect conversations from an AI tool

If you have the Novu MCP server connected, you can list and debug conversations without opening the dashboard:
  1. Call get_agents and copy the agent’s identifier (slug).
  2. Call get_conversations with that slug as agentId.
  3. Call get_conversation_activities with a conv_* identifier to inspect the timeline (messages, approvals, MCP connection rows).
These MCP tools require the Novu Cloud account MCP server. Self-hosted Enterprise can still use Conversations in the dashboard and API, but not through mcp.novu.co.

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Supported platforms

Both managed agents and custom code agents support the same live channels. Capability details (typing, plan cards, buttons, approvals, edits) live in one place:
Platform capabilities vary. For example, typing indicators and message edits are unavailable on email, and outbound file attachments are supported on Slack and Microsoft Teams only today.