Pinned Messages

General definition

Pinned Messages are ordinary chat messages that have been marked so the client keeps them visible or one tap away, usually in a bar at the top of the conversation or in a dedicated pinned list, no matter how far the conversation has moved on. Pinning does not copy or move the message; it adds a reference to it, and unpinning removes the reference while the original stays in the history.

Pins solve a specific problem of group chat and channels: important information gets buried. Common uses include:

• Rules and onboarding: community guidelines, how to get help, links to documentation
• Current status: the open incident, the agenda for today, the shift schedule
• Decisions and reference: the agreed price, the meeting link, the address, the form everyone needs
• Announcements: a message that must be read by everyone who joins later, not just those online when it was sent

Products differ on the details. Most limit pinning to room admins or moderators, though some let any member pin in small groups. Some allow a single pin, others a list with a limit. Some notify the room when a message is pinned, and some show a pin indicator on the message itself. Pins usually persist until removed, and a pinned message that is deleted is unpinned automatically.

Pins sit alongside two related tools. A message thread keeps a discussion attached to one message without fixing it in place, and an announcement or read-only channel keeps every message prominent by not allowing replies. A pin is the middle ground: one message, promoted, in a room that otherwise carries on as normal. From an engineering point of view a pin is room-level metadata (message id, who pinned it, when) that the server stores and broadcasts so every client shows the same set.

In the Ethora ecosystem

In Ethora, what stays in front of a room’s members is decided by the people who administer that room. Rooms and channels carry room-level admin controls: admins manage membership, moderation and room settings through the Chat SDK, the admin panel and the API, and the same permission model governs who may promote content for the whole room to see. Because room state is kept on the server, a promoted item is the same for every member on every device rather than a local bookmark.

For teams building their own experience, the SDK is open source and deeply themeable, so how highlighted content is presented, as a bar above the message list, a header card or a separate tab, is a design decision inside your app rather than a fixed vendor layout. An AI agent attached to the room can also keep reference information current by answering questions from a knowledge base, which often removes the need to pin it at all.