config.conversation decides what a new call or chat knows about earlier ones with the same person. Set this field rather than telling the model in the prompt to remember or forget — it cannot see what was never loaded. On text, a chat behaves exactly as a call does.
Only the agent that answers is read. A handoff target starts from the handoff’s own context policy.

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Modes

  • summary draws on every past call with this person, whichever agent took it, excluding the current one. It opens with: ”…This is background only: none of it was said on the call that is starting now…”. No past summaries is an ordinary empty result.
  • transcript inserts --- The call you are on now starts here (2026-08-19 13:56 UTC). … (The chat you are in now on text). Every past turn is in the context of every new turn and billed on your provider key each time; for frequent callers prefer summary.

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Fields

Who “the person” is depends on the surface — contact_key on web calls and chats, the pair of numbers on phone calls and WhatsApp. See userdata. So a transcript agent that calls someone who has been messaging your WhatsApp number starts the call with that chat in front of it. A web call or chat without contact_key has no history to recall.

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Where it is refused or overridden

  • summary needs call analysis writing summaries. Publish refuses it otherwise: 'include summaries of past conversations' needs call analysis to be writing summaries. Both analysis.enabled and analysis.summary default to on; the dashboard switches them back on for you, the API does not. See call analysis.
  • A WhatsApp call always continues the open WhatsApp chat, whatever context says, and their newest conversation when no chat is open. See WhatsApp calls.
  • A chat replying to your outreach joins it. If the contact’s newest conversation holds only something you sent (a WhatsApp template, say), the reply continues that conversation regardless of context.
  • A dropped web call can be resumed as a new call with its prior context, whatever context says — see web calls.
On Telegram and WhatsApp a person’s messages keep joining one chat until the agent ends it, so context decides what the next chat knows.

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Next

Userdata

The contact record initialize_userdata loads.

Context policies

What a handoff target starts from.