Shared Workspaces

Sharing gives other people access to a cloud workspace in one of two roles. Viewers see everything in the workspace — files, notebooks, chats and their full history, tasks, knowledge — but cannot change anything: they can’t edit or run notebooks, use the terminal, or modify files. Commenters can do everything viewers can, and can also leave comments on notebook cells and knowledge cards. The one thing both roles can do is chat: they can create their own chats in the shared workspace and message the agents in them. Those chats are read-only too — the agent can read files, search the workspace, and browse the web, but it has no tools that write, execute code, or run shell commands. They can also participate in another member’s chat when its creator enables collaboration; that agent uses its creator’s permissions and usage. See Chats in shared workspaces.

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Share a workspace

You must be the workspace’s owner to share it, and your own email address must be verified. Signing in with Google verifies it automatically. Organization SSO does the same when the address belongs to a domain the organization has verified. If you verify in another browser tab, return to the share dialog; it updates automatically within a few seconds. If an organization administrator disables external sharing, Public is hidden. Previously created public links also stop admitting new people outside the organization. Existing members retain their access; organization members can still join. General access shows the effective Organization audience for those links. Use Reset link to generate a new organization link.

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Receiving a shared workspace

The email says who shared the workspace and which address it was shared with, and its Open workspace button leads to that workspace. The link itself grants nothing: access belongs to the email address, so you have to be signed in to Qualia as that address to open it. For seven days, the signed-out login page can use the link to name the workspace and mask the address it was shared with; after that, sign in first to open it.

• If you already use Qualia with that address, the workspace opens (or is waiting under Shared with you on the Workspaces page and in the workspace selector).
• If you have no account yet, sign in with that address — creating an account is free — and the workspace opens once you’re in. The sign-in page names the workspace and the address it was shared with so you can pick the right account.
• If you’re signed in as a different address, Qualia says so in place of the workspace and offers to switch accounts or go back to All workspaces. There is no way to request access for a different address; ask the owner to share with it instead.
• If you signed in with GitHub or Apple, your address is not yet verified, so Qualia asks you to verify it before opening the workspace. The Workspaces page and the workspace selector also mention when shared workspaces are waiting on that. Confirming the verification link brings you straight to the workspace.
• If the owner stops sharing while you have the workspace open, or deletes it, you return to the Workspaces page with a note saying why.

While people are viewing your workspace, a presence indicator in the title bar shows who is currently connected.

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Seeing who is looking at what

Every member of a shared workspace — the owner and viewers alike — sees small avatars floating in a corner of the files and chats that other members currently have open: the top-right of a notebook or a chat, the bottom-right of any other file. An avatar appears while someone has that file or chat as the active tab of one of their panes. Hover an avatar for the full list of who is there. Your own avatar is never shown to you. Presence reflects what is actually on screen: a tab that is open but hidden behind another tab or in a collapsed pane does not count. Pinning a tab keeps it open but does not make it visible. Switching away from the browser tab clears your presence until you come back.

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Viewing a shared workspace

Workspaces shared with you appear in a Shared with you section of the workspace picker, attributed to their owner. While one is open, the title bar shows a viewing (or commenting) badge in place of the editing controls.

• Notebooks are live. The owner’s typing, structural edits, agent edits, and execution outputs stream in as they happen. Opening or reconnecting to a notebook also catches up with the owner’s current unsaved draft.
• Chats are live. Any open chat streams in real time, whoever its author is — you can watch another member’s conversation with an agent as it happens. When the creator chooses Everyone in this workspace in Chat access, everyone with workspace access can respond. The agents list also updates live as chats are created, renamed, finished, or deleted.
• Tasks and knowledge show their state as of when you opened them; close and reopen a view to refresh it.
• Files open read-only, with a refresh indicator when they change on disk.
• Presence is mutual. The avatars inside files and chats show you which members have them open, and the same avatars show them what you are looking at.
• New findings are the owner’s to accept or reject. You see which findings are awaiting review and can reply to one to start a chat about it, but the decision itself is not yours to make.

To remove a shared workspace from your picker, use its Leave action.

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Comments

Comments attach threads of discussion to notebook cells and knowledge cards. Everyone with access to a workspace sees its comments; the owner and commenters can write them.

• Leave a comment with the Comment button in the bottom-right corner. Comment mode outlines whatever the pointer is over; click it and write. Press Esc to leave comment mode.
• Commented things carry pins — one avatar per open thread, clustered in a corner badge visible to everyone. Hover the cluster to spread the pins apart, then click one to read that conversation and reply; click it again to close it.
• Resolve a thread with the check in its header. Resolving hides its pin; replying to a resolved thread reopens it. The owner and any commenter can resolve or reopen any thread.
• The comments list, next to the Comment button, shows every thread in the workspace — including resolved ones and comments on things that are not currently on screen, such as cells in other notebooks. Selecting one jumps to it when possible; a thread whose target is gone opens right in the list.
• Edit or delete your own comments from a comment’s hover menu. The owner can delete anyone’s comment; deleting a thread’s last comment removes the thread.

Comments update live for everyone with the workspace open.

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Chats in shared workspaces

Every chat belongs to the person who created it. All chats in a workspace are visible to everyone with access. By default, only its creator can message it. The creator can click the small person/people Chat access button beside the chat tabs and choose Everyone in this workspace to let everyone with workspace access participate, including viewers and commenters. Choose Only you to restrict messaging to the creator. Only the creator can change this setting; chats default to creator-only messaging. Everyone with workspace access can still view the chat. The button shows one person for creator-only messaging and a highlighted group when everyone can message. Hover or focus it for the current audience. If you are not the creator, its popover shows Only the creator or Everyone in this workspace as a read-only selection. The workspace owner can still stop, rename, or delete any chat in their workspace. Collaboration does not grant other members rename or delete access. With collaboration off, viewers and commenters see an author-only notice without a Stop button in chats created by someone else. The Agents section’s bulk Stop control affects chats you created, or all chats if you own the workspace. Bulk Resume affects your own chats. These controls are hidden when you have no eligible chats and disabled when none are running or stopped, respectively. Use a collaborative chat’s individual controls to stop or resume an agent created by someone else. For chats created by a viewer or commenter:

• The agent is read-only. It can read workspace files and attachments, look up tasks and knowledge, and search or fetch from the web. Tools that write anything — file edits, notebook cells, code execution, shell commands, task or knowledge updates, external integrations — are not available to it.
• Usage is billed to the viewer. Model usage in a viewer’s chat counts against the viewer’s own plan, not the owner’s.
• Chats are standalone. Viewer chats cannot attach notebooks, since notebook work requires the workspace’s execution machinery.

When a workspace is shared — or has chats created by someone other than the owner — the agents list shows who created each chat.

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Working together in a chat

All human messages appear on the right, with the sender’s avatar beside the bubble and their name above it. Seen by receipts sit directly below the message, aligned with the bubble’s right edge; receipts for agent replies align with the reply text. Avatars center vertically beside single-line messages and sit near the bottom of multi-line messages. The agent replies without a bubble or avatar, keeping its usual response layout. Everyone sees the conversation, attachments, accepted answers, and queued messages. New workspace members can read the full history, including the creator’s MCP tool calls and results. Viewing tool history does not change your own MCP configuration.

• One agent, one creator. The agent always uses the chat creator’s permissions and usage, whoever sends the message. In an owner-created chat, collaborators can direct the agent to change files and run code. In a viewer-created chat, the agent stays read-only, even when the workspace owner participates.
• Shared controls. Participants can stop or resume the agent and change Model, Independence (including Auto), Curiosity, and Parallelism. Saved settings update for everyone; messages already queued retain their captured settings. Only the creator can approve commands or change other chat settings.
• Personal drafts. Your composer draft and unfinished answers stay local. Ordinary agent questions are open to everyone; the first accepted answer to each question wins. Submitting… stays visible until the server accepts the answer, then everyone advances to the next unanswered question. If submission fails, your draft stays available to retry. Question navigation skips accepted answers; expand the answered question in the conversation to review it. Answered by and the person’s name appear below each attributed answer.
• Queued messages. A message sent while the agent is idle appears immediately in the conversation for everyone. Messages sent while the agent works appear as queued. Everyone’s queued messages use the same rows with avatars, names, queued status, and attachment counts. Only their sender can edit, remove, or use Send now on them. Long queues collapse and can be expanded into a scrollable list, including when you are viewing the chat read-only. Collaborative queues keep arrival order and cannot be dragged to reorder. Stop pauses work and preserves the queue. Sent messages cannot be edited or deleted. If a database error prevents a queued message from being processed, generation stops with an error and keeps unconsumed messages queued. Use Send now on your message to retry.
• Typing and reads. An avatar cluster shows who is typing. Small Seen by avatars mark each person’s latest viewed message, including silent viewers. Messages count as viewed when visible in the active browser window, not merely loaded in a background tab. Unread markers and the existing new-message controls help you catch up without losing your scroll position. Typing and read indicators update live; typing indicators clear automatically when someone stops typing.
• Ending participation. Disabling collaboration rejects new collaborator sends and removes their queued messages, while keeping the creator’s queue. Removing workspace access removes that person’s queued messages. Their historical messages remain attributed; deleted accounts display Deleted user. If the chat creator loses access, collaboration is disabled and their active agent stops.

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Managing access

• Remove a person with Remove access in the menu next to their name. New requests are denied as soon as removal completes. Qualia also disconnects known open sessions and returns them to their own workspace. Each backend rechecks connected viewers and expires access after 45 seconds, so a failed cross-backend revocation notification cannot leave an open session connected indefinitely.
• Removing someone while general link access is enabled prompts you to also reset the link, because anyone eligible to use it could otherwise come back. Choosing Remove and reset link does both in one step; nobody else who already joined is affected.
• Removing an address that hasn’t opened the workspace yet simply deletes the share; signing in with that address afterwards grants nothing.
• Send email again, in the menu next to a person’s name, re-sends the “shared with you” email. It can be sent once a minute per person, and each account can send at most 50 share emails a day. Sharing an address again from the box at the top does the same thing, and updates their role if you picked a different one.
• Reset link, in the General access menu, invalidates every previously copied URL and copies the replacement once. People who already joined keep their access; remove them individually if needed.
• Restricted, in the same menu, switches the link off so nobody new can join. Existing viewers keep their access.
• Organization admins can turn off Allow sharing with people outside this organization on the organization page. New email invitations and link joins are then limited to organization members, including joins through previously created public links. People already listed keep their access.
• Removing a workspace owner from their organization disables that owner’s sharing links and removes access grants for workspaces in that organization. It also removes that person from workspaces shared with them by other members of the organization, disconnects their sessions, and stops their active chats.
• Canceling an enterprise subscription applies the same cleanup to every remaining member before returning their accounts to the free plan.
• When a personal account joins an organization, Qualia disables sharing links and removes grants from its personal workspaces before changing its organization scope. The workspace data is retained privately, but sharing must be configured again if the person later returns to a personal account.