Service desk: authenticated conversational front-of-house agent (order catalog + track tasks)

[andywithcamera]

Authenticated users chat to the front-desk agent. Shape A (the only shape to build first); Shape B (anonymous public customer-support desk) is PARKED separately below.

NOT a general chat app. This is one transactional conversational surface with a narrow contract: turn an utterance into (1) a catalog order or (2) a read on the caller's own tasks. No free-form multi-user messaging.

Core behaviours:

• Order from the catalog - "I want a write-a-doc for pizza dough" -> creates a task routed to the right assignment group. Only orderable surfaces present in the catalog (Task catalog: invoke tasks from a first-class catalog surface (design first) #84).
• Track existing tasks conversationally - "where's my pizza doc?" -> reads task state and answers, scoped to the caller's own tasks.
• Uses the customer-notifications channel (Task chat: two channels per task (team chat / customer notifications), scope as v2 #72) on the resulting task as the update channel the desk surfaces to the caller.

Design seams it lands on (all already specced):

• Agent-identity model (Task engine: agent identities as users (authN differs, authZ identical) #68) - the desk is itself an agent user that serves a human caller.
• Task catalog (Task catalog: invoke tasks from a first-class catalog surface (design first) #84) as the orderable surface.
• Customer-notifications channel (Task chat: two channels per task (team chat / customer notifications), scope as v2 #72) as the task-to-caller update path.
• Task-read ACL (parked) - caller can only query THEIR OWN tasks; this is where that boundary gets exercised.
• AuthN via the standard identity model (human or agent client may talk to the desk).

Open fork to settle during build: free-text intent -> structured order (agent parse + confirmation) vs. a stricter menu-driven ordering. Recommend: agent parses, but always confirms before creating a task.

Category: c:agents (front-office surface), c:task-engine. Milestone: Foundation Task Engine.

[andywithcamera]

SHAPE B — PARKED (not building now): anonymous public customer-support desk (traditional service-desk). Requires its own session/ticket identity (#public-desk), no dependence on the #68 identity model, and a token/link-based read so an anonymous caller can only track tasks via a link given to them. Much heavier; deliberately out of scope for the first build. Track separately when (if) needed.

[andywithcamera]

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CHANNELS + GROUPS (extension agreed 2026-08-30):

• The desk is one or many chat channels, each bound to an assigned group (e.g. "IT Service Desk", "Onboarding").
• A channel's traffic routes to its group. Groups are mixed - humans and/or agents in the same group, claimable by either.
• Re-assignment / escalation between groups - a channel's traffic can move (helpdesk escalates infra to the platform group).
• Conversation UI for humans - clientside surface where a human interacts with the desk.

Availability/schedule is a separate concern: see the dedicated issue Agent availability & scheduling. The router (#70) and this desk (#85) both honour it.