Followers

Followers are agents added to a conversation so they receive notifications (and real-time new_message WebSocket events) without being assigned as the owner. Useful for SMEs who want to be looped in on a thread, or a manager monitoring escalations.

Method	Path	Permission
POST	/api/v1/conversations/{uuid}/follow	authenticated (self-add)
DELETE	/api/v1/conversations/{uuid}/follow	authenticated (self-remove)
POST	/api/v1/conversations/{uuid}/followers	conversations:read
DELETE	/api/v1/conversations/{uuid}/followers/{user_id}	conversations:read
GET	/api/v1/conversations/{uuid}/participants	conversations:read

Follow / unfollow yourself

POST   /api/v1/conversations/{uuid}/follow
DELETE /api/v1/conversations/{uuid}/follow

Add or remove the authenticated user as a follower. No body required. Used by the "Follow this conversation" button in the agent UI.

Response:

{
  "data": {
    "participants": [
      { "id": 42, "first_name": "Bob", "last_name": "Smith", "email": "bob@example.com", "type": "agent" },
      { "id": 17, "first_name": "Alice", "last_name": "Jones", "email": "alice@example.com", "type": "agent" }
    ]
  }
}

The full refreshed participant list is returned so the UI's followers picker can update without a separate fetch.

Add another agent as a follower

POST /api/v1/conversations/{uuid}/followers

Body:

Field	Type	Required
user_id	int	yes

POST /api/v1/conversations/afa55a3b-…/followers
Content-Type: application/json

{ "user_id": 17 }

Response: same shape as follow — the refreshed participant list.

Errors:

• 400 InputError — user_id missing or not a positive int.
• 404 NotFoundError — conversation or user not found.

System user

The System user (used for activity-log entries and automation) is filtered out of the participants list on read. Adding the System user as a follower is a no-op.

Remove a follower

DELETE /api/v1/conversations/{uuid}/followers/{user_id}

Removes the specified user from the conversation's followers. Returns the refreshed participant list.

Get participants

GET /api/v1/conversations/{uuid}/participants

Returns the current followers list. Used by the sidebar followers picker on conversation load.

Response:

{
  "data": [
    { "id": 42, "first_name": "Bob", "last_name": "Smith", "email": "bob@example.com", "type": "agent" }
  ]
}

The list excludes the System user.

Notifications

Adding a user as a follower triggers a new_notification WebSocket event to that user, and (if email notifications are enabled) an email:

Bob added you as a follower on ticket #217 — "Login problem after password reset"

Removing a follower does not generate a notification.

Followers also receive new_message WebSocket events for the conversation without needing to subscribe via conversation_subscribe, because the server fan-out targets the union of assignee + team members + followers.

Implementation notes

• Followers are stored as rows in the conversation_participants table with type = 'agent'.
• The reply-box "@mention" feature inserts mentions inline in the message but does not auto-add the mentioned user as a follower — that's a separate explicit action.
• Frontend uses a debounced SelectTag picker (multi-select); each add/ remove fires its own request. The server returns the refreshed full list so the UI is always source-of-truth.

Related

• WebSocket new_message — what followers actually receive.
• WebSocket new_notification — the "you've been added as a follower" toast.