Groups & Access Control

Map agent access to your org chart.
Engineering gets engineering agents. HR gets HR agents. Nobody sees what they shouldn't.

Pinchy groups — team-based agent access control

How It Works

1

Create groups

Go to Settings → Groups. Create groups that mirror your teams: Engineering, Marketing, HR, Finance, whatever fits.

2

Add members

Click a group, use the member picker to add users. A user can belong to multiple groups. Admins always have access to all agents regardless of group membership.

3

Set agent visibility

In each agent's settings → Access tab, choose a visibility mode. "Everyone" makes it available to all users. "Restricted" makes it available only to members of selected groups.

Agent Visibility Modes

🌍 Everyone

All users can see and talk to this agent. Good for general-purpose agents like a company wiki or IT helpdesk.

🔒 Restricted

Only members of selected groups can see this agent. It doesn't appear in other users' sidebars at all. They don't know it exists.

🚫 Hidden

Not visible to anyone except admins. Useful for agents under development or temporarily disabled agents.

Real-World Setup

A 50-person company with four departments. Here's how groups map agent access:

Group Members Agents they see
Engineering 15 developers DevOps Helper, Code Review, Company Wiki
Marketing 8 people Content Assistant, Analytics Agent, Company Wiki
HR 4 people HR Onboarding, Recruiting Agent, Company Wiki
Finance 5 people Accounting Agent, Reporting, Company Wiki
Admins (3) CTO, COO, IT Lead All agents (always)

The marketing team can't see the HR Onboarding agent. Engineers can't see the Accounting Agent. Everyone sees the Company Wiki. Admins see everything.

Two Layers of Control

Agent Permissions control what data an agent can access. Groups control who can talk to the agent. Together:

Layer 1: Agent Permissions

What can this agent do?

The HR agent can read /data/hr/ and /data/policies/. It cannot read /data/finance/ or execute shell commands.

Layer 2: Groups

Who can talk to this agent?

Only members of the HR group can see or interact with the HR agent. Marketing and Engineering don't even know it exists.

Neither layer alone is sufficient. Permissions without groups means anyone could ask the HR agent about employee data. Groups without permissions means a misconfigured agent could leak data it shouldn't access.

Enterprise Feature

Groups require an enterprise license key. Without it, Pinchy works perfectly for small teams where everyone accesses every agent.

When you activate enterprise features, existing agents default to "Everyone" visibility — nothing breaks. You then progressively restrict access as needed.

If the enterprise key expires, Pinchy gracefully degrades: all agents become accessible to all users. Nothing locks out. Renew the key and your group restrictions are restored.

Learn about Enterprise features →

See Groups in Action

30-minute demo. We'll set up groups, assign agents, and show how data isolation works across teams.

Book a Demo