BTW
Side conversations for Elyra — ask questions in parallel without polluting the main session context.
@elyracode/btw gives the agent a separate thread for clarifying questions, quick lookups, and exploratory thinking. The BTW thread runs as an isolated sub-process with full tool access (read, bash, edit, write), and its context never enters the main session — no token tax on the main agent.
Install
elyra install npm:@elyracode/btw
Commands
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
/btw <question> |
Ask a side question with tool access (runs in parallel to the main session) |
/btw:inject |
Send the BTW thread back into the main agent's context |
/btw:summarize |
Summarize the BTW thread and inject the summary instead of the full transcript |
/btw:clear |
Clear the BTW thread |
/btw:thread |
Show the current BTW thread |
When to use it
- Clarifying questions while the main agent keeps working
- Quick lookups without bloating the main context
- Exploring an approach before committing to it
- Research spikes that you only want to inject once they're useful
Examples
/btw what does the validateToken method return?
/btw how many tests are in the auth module?
/btw:summarize
/btw:inject implement the approach we discussed
/btw:clear
How it differs from sub-agents
@elyracode/subagents delegates a discrete task to a focused child agent and returns a single result. @elyracode/btw keeps a conversation alongside the main session — you can ask multiple follow-ups, then decide whether to inject the thread, summarize it, or throw it away.