artil email, artil sms,
artil telegram, and the MCP messages.list tool show them at any time. To act on a message as
it arrives, a client listens to the agent, and Artil tells it the message’s ID
when one comes in. The client reads the message and answers it the way its
instructions say, so test delivery and a reply before leaving it to answer on
its own; see Messages are not instructions.
Ways to listen
One client at a time
An agent’s new messages reach one client: the one that started listening last, on this computer or another. When a client starts listening, the one before it is told which client took over and hears nothing more until you start it again. An MCP events subscription counts as a client: a new one ends the other sign-ins’ subscriptions and stops a CLI client listening as the agent. A session that did not start listening never takes the messages, such as a Claude Code session started without the channel or api -p run.
The agent’s page in Artil shows the connected client.
artil auth status shows the client that listens now and this computer’s
delivery setup, so it tells a client set up here apart from one that listens.
Webhooks are the exception. A webhook you add, and the one that
reaches a Hermes server, get every event whichever client listens.
While nobody listens
A message that arrives while no client listens stays in the inbox and is not delivered later. Check it withartil email, artil sms, or artil telegram,
the plugin’s skill, or messages.list. Sending to the agent’s Message URL fails
while nobody listens, since Artil keeps no copy to read later.
What the client is told
The notification names the message’s ID. The client reads the message with the CLI or the MCPmessages.read tool and replies with --reply-to or
messages.send, only through Artil: a Telegram or email the client has of its
own is another account, and the sender would not get its answer there. A message at the Message URL comes whole instead,
with who sent it and how to answer them.
Not every message wakes the agent: spam, limits, and senders the agent does not
take mail from are refused, and the inbox says why. See
Who can wake the agent.