Overview
Comms is ARK's team chat and shared inbox. Channels, DMs, threads, and email — all in one place, all running on your Supabase and Vercel.
What Comms does
Comms is the communication hub most teams cobble together from Slack + Gmail + a ticketing tool. Here it's one app:
- Channels and DMs for team chat, threaded replies and reactions included.
- Mail for shared inboxes — incoming email lands alongside chat and gets routed the same way.
- Docs View and Tasks View so shared links and action items don't disappear in the scrollback.
- Notifications that respect working hours, channels, and thread participation.
The model will be familiar to anyone who's used Slack — you didn't buy Comms to learn new keyboard shortcuts.
Key capabilities
| Capability | What it means |
|---|---|
| Public & private channels | Topic-scoped conversations. Private channels require an invite. |
| Direct messages | 1:1 and small-group DMs, threaded. |
| Mail (shared inboxes) | Route incoming email into channels, reply inline. |
| Threads | Keep side conversations out of the main channel feed. |
| Huddles | WebRTC audio + optional video inside any channel. |
| Docs View | Auto-aggregated list of every link shared in a channel. |
| Tasks View | Turn any message into a tracked task. |
| Notifications | Channel-level, keyword, and DM rules. |
| Search | Full-text across messages, threads, and email. |
| Import from Slack | One-shot ingest of a Slack workspace export — public/private channels, DMs, threads, reactions, mentions. Reversible in one click. |
| Slack live extension | Read-only mirror of every connected Slack workspace inside Comms. Channels, DMs, mentions, threads, saves, multi-workspace switching. Reply by deep-linking into Slack itself. |
| Export | JSON export of every message for compliance. |
How Comms fits with other ARK products
If you run more than one ARK product in the same Supabase project, Comms becomes the communication backbone:
- Track — email threads and chat DMs auto-log against matching contacts so you never lose context.
- Pulse — delivers standups and surveys as channel messages; collects replies right there.
- Ink — linked docs render with rich previews inside messages.
- Hive (coming) — unread counts per team roll up into the leadership view.
Feature highlights
Channels. Topic-scoped, public or private, with optional archive-on-inactivity rules. Members, guests, or external partners can all be added.
Mail. Point a domain at your Comms deployment and incoming email becomes messages in a shared inbox channel. Reply from Comms — recipients see a normal email from your domain. No more "SEND AS" gymnastics.
Threads. Every message can spawn a thread. Threads keep the parent channel feed readable and raise notifications only for participants and @-mentioned users.
Huddles. Click the huddle bubble in any channel to spin up an ephemeral call. Screen share, audio-only mode, and up to ~15 participants per huddle.
Search. Full-text across every message, thread, and email. Filter by channel, user, date range, or attachment type.
Import from Slack. Admins can drop a Slack workspace export
.zip onto /admin/import and move the history over in minutes —
preview, pick channels, pick an unmatched-user strategy, run, and
rollback if needed. See
Import from Slack.
Slack live extension. If the team isn't ready to leave Slack yet, connect read-only and view every channel, DM, mention, and thread inside Comms. Save messages to your unified Saved view, filter by sender on mobile, switch between workspaces in one click. Replies go through Slack itself — Comms is the inbox, not the editor. See Slack extension.
Keyboard flow. Cmd+K jumps between channels, ⌘⇧A marks all
read, Esc collapses threads. Power users feel at home; nobody is
forced to learn it.