Every focused conversation in Tetra gets its own thread. The people who need to be in it. Everything that conversation needs — messages, files, recordings, decisions. Not a channel everyone can see. Not a DM that disappears. A thread that holds together until the work is done.
The collaboration tools that grew up in the 2010s treated the channel as the unit of organisation — broad, persistent, public-by-default within a workspace, designed to keep everyone "in the loop." A decade later, those channels are why nobody is in the loop. They are too noisy to read, too broad to act on, and too persistent to leave.
Tetra was built around a different primitive. The thread is narrow by design. It contains one focused conversation, with the people who need to be in it, and everything that conversation needs to reach a decision — text, files, ICAN recordings, reactions, private replies. When the work is done, the thread closes. When the work resumes, the thread reopens with all its context intact.
This page describes the four thread types Tetra ships today. Each is in production. Each is built around the same primitive, with different defaults to match different work patterns.
Different conversations need different defaults. A project conversation needs many people and full participation. A leadership announcement needs many people and one-way communication. A private discussion needs two people and full discretion. Tetra ships four thread types tuned for these patterns.
The standard thread. Multi-participant, two-way conversation for the work that needs collaborative thinking. Members added or removed cleanly. Admin privileges per thread. Latest activity sorts to the top.
For announcements, leadership updates, helpdesk-style communication. One-to-many delivery with private reply capability. Recipients can ask their question without the broadcast becoming a free-for-all group chat.
Two-person, fully encrypted, fully private. For the conversations that should not be visible to anyone else — a manager and a direct report, two leaders working through a sensitive issue, a confidential supplier discussion.
For published reference material, policy documents, compliance bulletins. The thread is permanent and visible, but recipients cannot reply. The point is the artifact, not the conversation about it.
A channel is a megaphone with a subscription model. A thread is a conversation with the people in it. The differences compound as the company grows.
The thread primitive is hard to explain in words and easy to feel in a 30-minute demo. We will walk through the four thread types with your team using your actual work scenarios.