Tasks to Chats API Migration

The Tasks API (/api/v2/tasks) and the Chats API (/api/experimental/chats) serve similar goals (programmatic access to AI-powered coding agents) but they differ significantly in architecture, capabilities, and usage patterns.

This guide walks you through updating your integrations from the Tasks API to the Chats API.

When to migrate

Coder Tasks is being deprecated. Support continues on the ESR release and through Coder v2.36. See the deprecation notice on the Coder Tasks page for the full timeline.

If you currently run workflows on the Tasks API, you should plan to migrate to the Chats API and Coder Agents. Coder Agents runs the agent loop in the Coder control plane rather than inside the workspace, and is the supported path going forward.

The two systems are not interchangeable. Tasks and Chats are separate resources with separate APIs, so plan to update your integrations rather than expecting a drop-in replacement.

Key architectural differences

Before mapping individual endpoints, understand the structural changes:

Endpoint mapping

The table below maps each Tasks API endpoint to its Chats API equivalent.

Migration steps

1. Configure an LLM provider

With Tasks, LLM credentials are injected into the workspace as environment variables (e.g. ANTHROPIC_API_KEY). With Coder Agents, credentials are configured once in the control plane:

1. Navigate to the Agents page in the Coder dashboard.
2. Click Admin > Providers, select a provider, enter your API key, and save.
3. Under Models, add at least one model and set it as the default.

You no longer pass API keys in template variables or workspace environment. See https://coder.com/docs/ai-coder/agents/getting-started for more information.

2. Update task creation calls

Tasks API. You specify the user, template version, and a prompt string:

Chats API. You send structured content parts. No template or user path segment is required:

Key differences:

• The {user} path parameter is removed. The authenticated user is inferred from the session token.
• organization_id is required in the request body. The caller must be a member of that organization.
• The prompt is now an array of ChatInputPart objects (supporting text, file, and file-reference types) instead of a plain string.
• template_version_id and template_version_preset_id are removed. The agent selects a template automatically based on the prompt and available template descriptions. To pin to a specific workspace, pass workspace_id instead.
• Optionally pass model_config_id to override the default model, or mcp_server_ids to attach MCP servers.

3. Update follow-up message calls

Tasks API. Follow-ups use the send endpoint with a plain string:

Chats API. Follow-ups use the messages endpoint with content parts:

The Chats API supports message queuing. If the agent is busy, the message is queued automatically and delivered when the agent finishes its current step. The response includes a queued field indicating whether the message was delivered immediately or queued.

4. Switch from log polling to WebSocket streaming

Tasks API. You poll for logs:

Chats API. You open a one-way WebSocket connection:

The WebSocket sends JSON envelopes with a type field ("ping", "data", or "error"). Data envelopes contain batches of events:

Use after_id as a query parameter when reconnecting to skip messages the client already has.

5. Update status handling

Task and chat statuses use different values. The Chats API status set is defined in codersdk.ChatStatus:

The Chats API uses waiting as the default idle state (not complete). A chat enters waiting when it is first created (before any message is queued) and again whenever a run finishes or is interrupted, so treat waiting as "the agent is not currently working" rather than only "the agent just finished." The completed enum value is also defined but is not currently set by any production code path on main.

6. Replace delete with archive

The Tasks API uses DELETE to remove a task. The Chats API uses archiving:

Archived chats can be restored by setting archived to false.

7. Replace pause/resume with interrupt and messaging

Tasks API. Pause and resume stop and start the workspace:

Chats API. Interrupt stops the current agent loop. Sending a new message resumes processing:

In the Tasks API, pausing stops the workspace and frees compute. In the Chats API, interrupt stops the agent loop in the control plane; the workspace may remain running. The workspace lifecycle is managed independently.

8. Update GitHub Actions integrations

If you use the Create Task Action GitHub Action, replace it with the dedicated coder/create-agent-chat-action. It handles the API call, the GitHub user lookup, and the optional issue comment, so most existing workflows can swap one uses: line and rename a few inputs.

We are actively shipping new features for create-agent-chat-action, so pin to a major version (for example @v0) and watch the releases for updates.

Key differences from the Tasks GHA:

• No coder-template-name or coder-task-name-prefix. The agent auto-provisions a workspace; pass workspace-id if you want to pin to an existing workspace instead.
• The prompt input is renamed from coder-task-prompt to chat-prompt.
• LLM credentials are no longer passed through the template. They are configured in the Coder control plane.
• Identify the user with github-user-id (the action resolves it to a Coder user via the GitHub OAuth link) or with coder-username directly.

See the action README for the full input and output reference, including the existing-chat-id input for sending follow-up messages on a previous chat.

Template recommendations

With Coder Tasks, every task-capable template requires specific Terraform resources (coder_ai_task, coder_task, agent modules, and LLM API keys). With Coder Agents, templates no longer need any of these. The agent runs in the control plane and treats the workspace as plain compute.

However, we still recommend creating dedicated templates for agent workloads rather than reusing your standard developer templates unchanged. The reasons are different from Tasks, but the principle holds:

Why dedicated agent templates still matter

• Network boundaries. Agent workspaces inherit whatever network access the template allows. Because the agent does not need outbound access to LLM providers (that happens in the control plane), you can lock down agent templates to only reach the Coder control plane and your git provider. Standard developer templates typically allow broader access.
• No IDE tooling overhead. The agent connects via the workspace daemon's HTTP API, not through VS Code or JetBrains. Removing IDE extensions, desktop environments, and similar tooling from agent templates reduces image size and startup time.
• Scoped credentials. Agent workloads may warrant more restrictive credentials than interactive developer sessions. A dedicated template lets you provide a separate, narrower-scoped git token or service account without affecting your developers' workflow.
• Cost control. Agent workspaces can often use smaller compute resources than developer workspaces since they don't need to run IDEs, language servers, or other interactive tooling. A dedicated template lets you right-size the infrastructure.

What to include in agent templates

• Clear descriptions. The agent selects templates by reading names and descriptions. Include the target language, framework, repository, and type of work. For example: "Python backend services for the payments repo. Includes Poetry, Python 3.12, and PostgreSQL."
• Pre-installed dependencies. Language runtimes, build tools, git, and project-specific dependencies should be baked into the image. Time the agent spends installing tools is time not spent on the task.
• Git configuration. Ensure git is configured with credentials and author information so the agent can commit and push without additional setup.
• Minimal parameters. Use sensible defaults so the agent can provision workspaces without guessing. Avoid required parameters with opaque identifiers.

What to remove from migrated task templates

If you are converting an existing task template for use with Coder Agents, you can safely remove the Tasks-specific Terraform resources. They are unused when the chat is driven by the Chats API:

See Template Optimization for the full guide on writing discoverable descriptions, configuring network boundaries, scoping credentials, and pre-installing dependencies.

Pre-creating a workspace for deterministic results

Letting the agent pick a template and provision a workspace works well for exploratory chats. If your workflow requires deterministic results like:

• Automations
• Recurring processes
• Generally any case that needs a known reproducible environment

pre-create the workspace yourself and attach it when you create the chat.

The pattern is two API calls:

1. Create a workspace from a specific template via POST /api/v2/users/{user}/workspaces. You control the template, the version, and any rich parameters.
2. Create the chat with workspace_id set to the workspace you just created. The agent runs against that workspace instead of selecting one heuristically.

This pattern is the closest analogue to the Tasks API behavior of template_version_id plus coder-template-name: you decide which template runs, the agent decides what to do inside it. The same approach works from the coder/create-agent-chat-action GHA, which exposes the same pin via its workspace-id input.

How to test your migration

After completing the migration steps above, walk through these checks to confirm the Chats API integration is working end-to-end.

1. Confirm LLM provider connectivity

List available models to verify at least one provider is configured and reachable:

If this returns an empty list or an error, revisit Step 1: Configure an LLM provider.

2. Create a chat and confirm the response

Create a simple chat that does not require a workspace:

You should receive a Chat object with status set to "waiting" or "pending". Save the id for subsequent steps.

3. Stream the response

Open a WebSocket connection to verify the agent processes the prompt and returns a response. Using websocat:

You should see JSON envelopes with "type": "data" containing message_part and status events. The chat should eventually reach "waiting" status, indicating the agent completed its response.

4. Send a follow-up message

Verify multi-turn conversation works:

The response should include "queued": false (delivered immediately) or "queued": true (agent was busy. The message is queued and will be processed next).

5. Test workspace provisioning

Create a workspace from your converted agent template through the standard Coder UI, then attach it to a new chat from the chat composer:

1. In the Coder dashboard, create a workspace from the agent template you migrated.
2. Open Agents and start a new chat.
3. In the composer, use the workspace picker to attach the workspace you just created.
4. Send a prompt that exercises the workspace, for example: "List the files in the root directory of this workspace."

The response stream should show the agent invoking workspace tools (such as execute) against the attached workspace. After the chat finishes, verify the chat is bound to the workspace via the API:

A workspace_id matching the workspace you attached confirms the chat is driving that workspace end-to-end. Auto-provisioning from the chat flow is also supported but is easier to verify once the manual-attach path is working.

6. Verify interrupt works

Start a long-running chat and interrupt it:

Then confirm the chat status returns to "waiting":

7. Validate archive and restore

Quick checklist

Use this checklist to confirm each part of your integration:

• At least one LLM model is configured and returned by /chats/models
• POST /chats creates a chat and returns a valid Chat object
• WebSocket stream at /chats/{chat}/stream delivers events
• Follow-up messages via /chats/{chat}/messages are accepted
• Chat attached to a workspace from the converted template runs tools against that workspace
• POST /chats/{chat}/interrupt stops the agent and returns to waiting
• Archive and restore via PATCH /chats/{chat} works
• (If applicable) GitHub Actions workflow creates chats successfully

Features available only in the Chats API

The Chats API includes capabilities that have no equivalent in the Tasks API:

Response schema changes

The Tasks API returns a Task object with workspace-centric fields. The Chats API returns a Chat object with conversation-centric fields:

CLI changes

The Tasks CLI (coder task) and the Coder Agents CLI are separate. Coder ships an experimental TUI for Coder Agents at coder exp agents (planned to graduate to coder agents in the May Beta release per #24432). The TUI talks to the same /api/experimental/chats endpoints documented in this guide; for automation, prefer direct API calls.