# Core concepts

> The handful of ideas that everything else builds on: workspace, chatbot, knowledge, conversation, and lead.

Source: https://www.hey.support/docs/getting-started/core-concepts

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A few terms come up everywhere in Hey Support. Here is what each one means.

## Workspace

Your workspace is the top-level container. It holds your chatbots, your team members, your plan, and your billing. When you sign up, you get one workspace. You can belong to more than one, and you switch between them from the sidebar.

Owners manage billing, members, and roles. Members can build and run agents but cannot touch billing. See [Team and roles](/docs/billing/team-and-roles).

## Chatbot

A chatbot (we also call it an agent) is a single assistant with its own knowledge, personality, look, tools, and install. Most workspaces run one. Higher plans let you run several, for example one per brand or one per language.

Your plan sets how many chatbots you can create. See [Plans](/docs/billing/plans).

## Knowledge

Knowledge is what the agent knows. It comes from two kinds of source:

* **Trained sources** (websites, files, and text) are broken into chunks and searched at answer time. The agent pulls the most relevant pieces into each reply. This is retrieval.
* **Direct sources** (quick answers and quick links) are handed to the agent verbatim. Use these for exact facts you never want paraphrased, like prices or opening hours.

More in [Knowledge](/docs/knowledge/overview).

## Conversation

A conversation is one visitor's chat session. It has a status (open, waiting, or resolved), a running message count, and any tags you add. Conversations show up in the [Inbox](/docs/conversations/inbox), where you can read them, jump in, and reply as a human.

Your plan includes a monthly pool of conversations. See [Usage and limits](/docs/billing/usage-and-limits).

## Lead

A lead is a person the agent captured contact details for, usually a name and email. Leads land in the [Leads](/docs/conversations/leads) board, a simple pipeline you move from New to Converted. Turn capture on in [Capabilities](/docs/capabilities/overview).

## How they connect

A workspace holds chatbots. A chatbot has knowledge, tools, and a look. When a visitor chats, that is a conversation. When the agent captures their details, that is a lead. Everything you do in the docs sits somewhere on that chain.