---
audience: everyone
summary: 'Mental model: workspaces, rooms, notes, AI participants, plans, federation,
  bridges.'
title: Concepts
path: concepts
status: published
---

# Concepts

The vocabulary you'll see across the rest of the docs. Read in order;
the later pages build on the earlier ones.

## Core

- [Rooms and workspaces](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/rooms-and-workspaces) — where conversations happen.
- [Rooms vs. notes](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/rooms-vs-notes) — when to use each.
- [Participants](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/participants) — humans, AIs, helpers, sidekicks, federation peers.

## AI

- [AI engagement](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/ai-engagement) — how AIs join rooms, what response modes do, system prompts.
- [Sidekicks](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/sidekicks) — delegated agents that run in the background.
- [Planner](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/planner) — stateful multi-step plans.
- [Plugins and tools](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/plugins-and-tools) — what the AI can call.

## Surfaces

- [Notifications](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/notifications) — presence, mute, quiet hours, priority inbox.
- [Calls](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/calls) — audio, video, screen share, recording.
- [Search](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/search) — hybrid BM25 + vector retrieval.

## Topology

- [Multi-tenancy](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/multi-tenancy) — isolation guarantees.
- [Federation](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/federation) — cross-tenant rooms.
- [Bridges](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/bridges) — connecting to Slack, Discord, Teams, remote ScaiWaves.
- [Incognito and restricted rooms](/docs/scaiwave/concepts/incognito-and-restricted) — when conversations don't leave the room.