Every bot that has a phone number, an email address or a messaging channel gets a phone in Allternit. It collects the bot’s conversations, its calls and mail, the channels you turned on, and the MCP Apps you installed, on a home screen of apps. It is the same phone on Allternit Desktop, on ai.allternit.com and on the m.allternit.com phone app.

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Open a bot’s phone

  • Desktop and the web app: click the Phones button at the bottom of the left rail (it shows the total number of unread conversations). A list called Your bots’ phones shows one row per bot that has any channel, number or email. Choose a bot to open its phone over whatever you were doing.
  • Needs you: the Inbox button next to Phones lists everything across all bots that waits on you. See The Needs you inbox.
  • Phone: open the menu and tap Phones. The phone opens full screen.
  • No phone yet? Choose Give a bot a phone at the bottom of the list. It starts the same flow as connecting a number in Messaging channels.

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The floating phone (Desktop and web)

The phone is a 390 px window that floats over the current view. It is not a tab.
  • Drag the title strip to move it. Where you leave it is remembered for next time. With the title strip focused, the arrow keys move it too.
  • Switch bots from the name in the title strip.
  • Minimize turns it into a pill in the bottom-right corner. The pill shows a live call, or the latest message, and new messages pop up briefly as notifications. Click the pill to bring the phone back.
  • Pop out opens the phone in its own window that you can move to another screen; links in it (a thread, MCP Apps) open in the main window. In a browser it opens as a popup; if popups are blocked, or on a Desktop app that is older than the release with the phone window, it opens as a larger panel in the middle of the screen instead, and clicking it again docks it.
  • Close, or press Esc. Focus stays inside the phone while it is open and returns to where you were when it closes.

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The home screen

The top shows the bot’s name with its number and email address. A green banner appears while there is a live call. When something from this bot needs you (an approval, a held message, a missed call), a banner says so; tap it for the bot’s part of the Needs you inbox. Below, in order:
  • Talk: Messages, Phone, Mail and People. They sit in the dock at the bottom too.
  • Channels you turned on: one app for each messaging channel the bot is connected to (Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Microsoft Teams). A channel that is switched off or has lost its connection looks dimmed. Tap it to reconnect.
  • Vendor bots: if the bot is bound to a vendor agent such as Grok or Claude, its tile is here.
  • MCP Apps: the MCP Apps you installed. They open full screen inside the phone. Add app opens the MCP Apps catalog.
  • <Bot> settings: the bot’s own voice, personality and connection settings. Allternit’s global Settings stay in the rail.
Tap Home (or the bar at the bottom) to go back from any app.

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The core apps

Messages lists every conversation the bot has, grouped by person, with a chip for each channel they use. Filters: All, Texts, Calls, Allternit, Email and one per connected channel. Calls takes you to the Phone app. Opening a conversation shows it inside the phone in that channel’s own look, with the full composer. Phone shows a live call with Listen and Take over, then recent calls, and a keypad. Enter a number, then choose Have the bot call or Text. The bot can only reach numbers that have contacted it first or that you added as a contact. Mail is the bot’s mailbox with three folders: Inbox, Needs OK (replies waiting for your approval, with Approve send and Reject) and Sent. Until your Allternit runtime offers the mail folders, Inbox is built from the email conversations and the other two folders say they aren’t available yet. People (formerly Contacts) shows one row per person across every channel, with merge, split and the reply channel (People). Below it, the contact list shows the people the bot can reach, how (Allternit, text, call, email), the consent on file and the status of any invite. Invite someone creates a single-use link and lets you copy it, share it or send it from the bot. People who joined Allternit through an invite get Message and Call buttons. See Invite someone to reach your bot.

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Channel apps and Start new

A channel app lists that channel’s conversations for this bot, with All, Groups, Direct and Mentions filters, and opens each one in the channel’s own look. Start new lets the bot open a conversation. Choose a person, group or channel the bot can see (or enter a username, email or phone number when the channel allows it), write the first message and send. Channels have their own rules:
  • Telegram and WhatsApp won’t let a bot write first to someone who never messaged it, or after the 24-hour reply window has closed. The phone tells you when that is the reason.
  • A bot can only post in a group or channel it is a member of.
  • Teams only lets the bot write to a conversation it already has (someone installed or messaged it). Discord direct messages work with the Allternit Discord app, for people who share a server with it and allow DMs from server apps. Slack needs a channel the bot was invited to, or a person’s Slack user id.
  • Email you start waits under Needs OK until you approve it. A text goes out from the bot’s number, but only to someone who has texted or called that number first or is one of your allowed contacts.
  • If your Allternit runtime doesn’t support starting conversations on a channel yet, the sheet says so.

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Attachments

Choose Attach, drag files onto the sheet, or paste a screenshot to add files to a first message in Start new, or to a reply in a Telegram, Slack or email conversation. Each file shows as a chip you can remove before sending. Limits: 10 MB per file and 20 MB per message, with up to 5 files on Telegram and Slack and 10 on email. Text messages, WhatsApp, Discord and Teams don’t take attachments from a bot yet, so Attach is greyed out there and its tooltip says why. If a send fails, the chips stay so you can try again. Files you send show under the message in the conversation. Nothing is sent without you tapping Send. Developers: see Starting conversations on a channel.

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Unread

A conversation counts as unread when it has new activity since you last opened it on any of your devices: open it on your phone and the badge clears on Desktop and the web app too (on their next refresh, within about a minute). The Phones button, the pills on the home screen and the badges on app tiles all use the same count. The home screen shows the bot’s own email address when the bot has the Email channel on. Developers: your computer keeps the read marks. GET /api/v1/bot-phone/seen returns {"seen": {"<conversationId>": <epoch ms>}} for the signed-in owner, and PUT /api/v1/bot-phone/seen {"seen": {…}} records marks (a mark only moves forward; up to 500 per call, the newest 5,000 are kept). Each device also keeps a local copy, so a computer that is briefly unreachable doesn’t bring badges back.

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Move a number to another bot

A number answers as one bot at a time, and you can change which one. This works the same on Desktop, ai.allternit.com and the m.allternit.com phone app.
  1. Open the bot that has the number, then Settings → Phone and reach.
  2. On the Phone number card, choose Move to another bot… and pick the bot that should answer.
  3. Read the confirmation, then choose Move number: “Texts and calls to number will go to new bot from now on. Past conversations stay with old bot.”
From the other side: on a bot with no number, the Phone number card lists the numbers your other bots have. Choose Use number here and confirm. What moves and what stays:
  • Moves: new texts and calls, the number shown on each bot’s profile (with its texting and voice switches), and invites you sent that nobody has accepted yet.
  • Stays: past conversations and call history stay with the old bot. The number itself, its carrier registration, its contacts and opt-outs (STOP) don’t change, so nobody has to opt in again.
  • The bot’s own voice and greeting come from the bot that answers, so callers hear the new bot from the next call.
The computer that runs the number applies the move within seconds. If that computer is asleep or offline, it applies it when it next starts. If the move fails, the card says why (for example, the number was released) and nothing changes. Developers: see Phone numbers and SMS (runtime).

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What the bot can do on its own

Each channel app has a chip under its header (for example Ask first) that sets how far the bot goes on its own there, and Settings lists every place. See What your bot can do on its own.