Relay.

Relay is the messenger Intactic runs on internally — threads-first, searchable, and deliberately quiet. No presence theater, no unread anxiety badges: just conversations that resolve and archives that actually answer questions.

Chat tools optimized for engagement made deep work impossible. Context lived in unsearchable scrollback, decisions evaporated in channels, and the whole team had developed a twitch for the little red dot.

• Designed around threads as the primary object — every conversation has an owner, a state and an eventual resolution
• Built a Redis-backed fan-out with per-device sync so switching devices never replays history you already read
• Implemented full-text search across threads, decisions and files with filters that match how support actually asks
• Deleted features ruthlessly: no typing indicators, no read receipts, one badge for things needing you — nothing else

Relay carries every engineering and support conversation at Intactic. Median thread resolution time halved versus our old setup, and ‘it’s in the archive’ became a complete answer again.