Use
This section covers the day-to-day usage of the RunWhen platform. Each area of the platform has a dedicated page with screenshots, step-by-step instructions, and common workflows.
If you want one end-to-end walkthrough for building operational context across Rules, Commands, and Knowledge, start with Guide: Building Operational Context.
Platform Navigation
The RunWhen workspace has three main areas, accessible from the left sidebar:
| Area | Icon | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Workspace Chat | Chat bubble | Natural language troubleshooting with AI Assistants; slash commands for saved procedures. Same assistants work in the Slack app (DMs, @mentions, threads). Open Issues from background tasks are cited inline as the assistant investigates — there is no separate Issues page. |
| Workspace Studio | Scissors/tools | Manage Tasks, Rules, Commands (including scheduled runs with Slack/email delivery), Knowledge notes, Workflows, and Assistants. This is where you configure what the platform knows and does. |
| Workspace Configuration | Gear | Workspace settings, user management, secrets, and Slack integration. |
Pages in This Section
Workspace Chat
The primary troubleshooting interface. Describe a problem in natural language, and an AI Assistant investigates on your behalf — searching for existing issues, running diagnostic tasks, analyzing results, and recommending fixes.
Key topics: Starting a session, slash commands, how the Assistant responds, scope filtering, selecting an assistant, chat history, prompting tips, Slack parity and limitations.
Workspace Studio
The management hub for everything the platform knows and can do. Contains six tabs: Tasks, Rules, Commands, Knowledge, Workflows, and Assistants.
Key topics: SLX management, creating tasks, defining rules and commands, scheduled commands (cron + Slack/email), Knowledge notes (authoring, resource scope, indexing), configuring workflows.
Related guide: Building Operational Context — where Rules, Commands, and Knowledge fit together, including durable workspace setup and short-term release/change overlays.
Engineering Assistants
AI-powered agents with configurable personas and permission levels. Each workspace comes with preset assistants (Eager Edgar, Cautious Cathy, Admin Abby, Dev Danica) and supports custom configurations.
Key topics: Assistant profiles, confidence thresholds, RBAC, Form vs YAML configuration, creating custom assistants.
Common User Journeys
Step-by-step guides for typical workflows: investigating unhealthy services, responding to alerts, developer self-service troubleshooting, onboarding to a new workspace, setting up automated monitoring, and reviewing past incidents.
MCP Server
Connect your AI coding agent (Cursor, VS Code, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or other MCP-capable CLIs) to RunWhen over the Model Context Protocol — locally or via RunWhen-hosted remote MCP on beta (https://mcp.beta.runwhen.com/mcp). Ask the AI assistant questions, build automation tasks, and commit SLXs — from your IDE or terminal.
Key topics: Installation (including Claude Desktop and CLI setup), local vs remote configuration, tool reference, Tool Builder workflow, script contract, RUNWHEN.md context.