In brief: Tagging a chat message to a Job, Deliverable, or Task makes it findable from that work later; you can always retag your own.

Applies to: Owner, Admin, Lead, and Member for their own messages; Admin and Owner for anyone else's.

See also: Mentions in Chat: @ for People, Brackets for Work covers the inline half, and Chat Layout: Stream, General, Job Channels, and DMs covers where automatic tags come from.

Every chat message can carry one tag pointing at a Job, a Deliverable, or a Task. The tag is what makes a message findable later: it decides whether the message shows up when you filter by that work, and whether it counts toward the chat badge on it. Net Net applies the tag automatically wherever it already knows the context. Retagging is how you fix the cases where it does not, and you can always retag your own messages. Retagging somebody else's needs Admin or Owner.

You'll find the tagging control in the actions menu on any message.

What a tag actually does

A tag is the answer to "what is this message about," stored on the message itself rather than guessed from the words in it.

That one small piece of structure is what turns a chat log into something you can search a year later. A tagged message:

• appears when you filter Stream or any channel by that Job, Deliverable, or Task
• counts toward the message, unread, and mention badges on that item
• shows up in the chat drawer when someone opens that Deliverable or task row

An untagged message is still a message. It just lives only where it was posted, findable by scrolling and by search, and invisible to anyone approaching from the work.

Tags roll up

A tag on a Task counts toward its Deliverable and toward its Job. A tag on a Deliverable counts toward its Job.

So the number on a Job's chat button is everything anyone has said about any part of that Job, and the number on a Deliverable is that Deliverable plus its tasks. You never have to open five places to find out whether a conversation happened.

One tag per message

A message points at one piece of work, not several. If a message genuinely belongs to two Deliverables, it is usually two messages, and splitting it is the honest fix.

When Net Net tags for you

Most messages get tagged without anybody thinking about it. There are three cases.

Job Channels. Anything you post in a Job Channel is tagged to that Job automatically. That is the default state of most conversation in Net Net, and it is why Job Channels are the primary work surface in Chat Layout: Stream, General, Job Channels, and DMs.

Chat drawers. Open the chat button on a Job header, a Deliverable card, or a task row and everything you write in that drawer is tagged to that exact item. Net Net already knows what you are looking at, so it does not ask.

Replies. A reply inherits the tag of the message it is replying to. That holds even when you reply from Stream, which is what keeps Stream replies from becoming orphans.

When it does not, and what to do

Two places have no work context of their own: General and Direct Messages.

A message posted in either one starts with no tag. That is correct behavior, because most of what happens in those places really is not about one specific Job. But it is also exactly where the important stray message ends up: a client changes their mind in a DM, someone flags a problem in General, and six weeks later nobody can find it.

That is what retagging is for.

How to retag a message

Open the actions menu on the message and choose the tagging option. Pick a Job, a Deliverable inside a Job, or a Task inside a Deliverable. Confirm.

The message body is untouched. You are not editing anything anyone wrote, you are attaching context to it. From that point on the message behaves like it always belonged to that work: it appears in filters, it counts on badges, it shows up in the drawer.

The same control changes a tag that is already there, or removes one entirely.

Who can retag what

Two separate permissions, and the split is between your own messages and everyone else's.

Your own messages. All four default roles can tag, retag, and untag their own messages: Owner, Admin, Lead, and Member. What each one covers elsewhere in the workspace is set out in User Roles Explained: Owner, Admin, Lead, and Member.

Other people's messages. Only Admin and Owner can, out of the box. Leads and Members cannot retag a message somebody else wrote.

That line is drawn where it is on purpose. Retagging changes where a message shows up, which means it changes what a Job's history looks like to everybody else. Correcting your own context is housekeeping. Reaching into someone else's is a heavier act, and it belongs with the roles that already carry that kind of responsibility.

An Owner or Admin can change these defaults per role under Settings → Roles.

What cannot be a tag target

Quick Tasks. They sit outside Chat entirely and cannot be tagged, referenced, or given a conversation. The reasoning is in Chat on Completed, Archived, and Quick Task Work.

Everything else in the Job structure is fair game, including Draft tasks. A Draft task is a planning note rather than a commitment, as Job Tasks: Assignees, Allocations, and Statuses explains, but planning notes are worth talking about, so chat works on them normally.

Tagging and referencing are different things

Worth restating, because they are easy to blur.

• A reference is inline, typed with [[, and lives inside your sentence. It makes the message readable
• A tag is on the whole message and never appears in the text. It makes the message findable

Writing [[Website Redesign / Homepage]] in a DM gives readers a link. It does not put that message into the Homepage Deliverable's history. Tagging it does. See Mentions in Chat: @ for People, Brackets for Work.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does tagging a message actually change?

It makes the message findable from the work rather than only from the channel it was posted in. A tagged message shows up when you filter by that Job, Deliverable, or Task, counts toward its chat badge, and appears in its chat drawer. The message text is not changed at all.

Do I have to tag my messages manually?

Usually not. Job Channel messages tag to the Job, chat drawer messages tag to the item you opened, and replies inherit their parent's tag. The only places with no automatic tag are General and Direct Messages, because neither has a work context of its own.

Who can retag someone else's message?

Admins and Owners. Leads and Members can retag only their own messages. All four default roles can freely tag, retag, and untag anything they wrote themselves. An Owner or Admin can adjust this per role under Settings → Roles.

Does retagging edit the message?

No. Retagging attaches context to a message without touching a word of it. That is the whole reason it exists as a separate action from editing, which only an author can do. The change is recorded in the workspace audit log.

Can one message be tagged to two Deliverables?

No. A message carries one tag. If a message truly covers two pieces of work, the honest fix is two messages, each tagged where it belongs.

Does tagging a Task also count it on the Job?

Yes. Tags roll up. A Task's messages count toward its Deliverable and its Job, and a Deliverable's count toward its Job. Opening a Job shows you everything said about any part of it.

Can I tag a message to a Quick Task?

No. Quick Tasks are outside Chat by design. They cannot be tagged, referenced, or given a conversation of their own. Job Tasks can, including Draft ones.

Related articles

If tags still feel abstract, Chat Layout: Stream, General, Job Channels, and DMs shows the surfaces they come from and the filters they feed. Mentions in Chat: @ for People, Brackets for Work covers the inline half of the same problem, and Chat Threads: Replying, Editing, and Deleting Messages explains why retagging exists as something separate from editing. The permission split described here follows the same lines as the rest of the workspace, which User Roles Explained: Owner, Admin, Lead, and Member lays out in full. And if you want to know what you are pointing a tag at, Deliverables: Status, Due Dates, and Confidence Explained covers the middle layer of the Job structure.

Updated on: 08/04/2026