CopilotThreadsDrawer

Drop-in threads drawer that lists, switches, and manages conversations next to your chat.

What is this?#

<CopilotThreadsDrawer> gives your app a ready-made conversation sidebar — users can list, switch, start, archive, and delete their threads, and you wire up no active-thread state to make it work. Drop it next to your chat and it connects automatically.

CopilotThreadsDrawer listing conversations next to an active CopilotChat conversation

Under the hood it's a thin React wrapper around the self-contained copilotkit-threads-drawer web component, fed by useThreads and your chat configuration.

Prefer to build your own thread UI? The same data and actions are available headlessly through the useThreads hook — see Threads. Thread rename is one of those headless actions: the prebuilt drawer's row menu covers archive/unarchive and delete, so wire up rename with useThreads and your own UI if you need it.

When should I use this?#

Use the drawer when you want:

A persistent thread switcher beside your chat (chat-history sidebar)
Thread switching, new conversations, archive, and delete with zero wiring
A self-contained, themeable UI that follows your app's light/dark theme
A mobile-ready off-canvas drawer with its own launcher

It requires the Enterprise Intelligence Platform (threads are stored and synced server-side). See Threads to set that up.

Threads run on the Enterprise Intelligence Platform

Get persistent threads and realtime sync on the free Developer tier.

Get Enterprise Intelligence free

Basic setup#

Drop <CopilotThreadsDrawer> next to <CopilotChat>, and wrap both in a shared <CopilotChatConfigurationProvider> so they operate on the same chat configuration. That shared config is what lets the drawer drive the chat: with no callbacks, selecting a row connects the chat to that thread and replays its history; the "New Conversation" row resets the chat to a fresh welcome screen. (Without the shared provider the drawer sits beside the chat's own scoped configuration and can't switch its thread.)

app/page.tsx

import {
  CopilotKitProvider,
  CopilotChatConfigurationProvider,
  CopilotChat,
  CopilotThreadsDrawer,
} from "@copilotkit/react-core/v2";
import "@copilotkit/react-core/v2/styles.css";

export default function Page() {
  return (
    <CopilotKitProvider runtimeUrl="/api/copilotkit" publicLicenseKey="ck_pub_...">
      <CopilotChatConfigurationProvider>
        <div style={{ display: "flex", height: "100dvh" }}>
          <CopilotThreadsDrawer />
          <CopilotChat />
        </div>
      </CopilotChatConfigurationProvider>
    </CopilotKitProvider>
  );
}

That's the whole integration. A hand-rolled sidebar would have you track the active threadId in your own state and pass selection/new-thread handlers between the list and the chat; here the drawer and the CopilotChatConfigurationProvider share that state, so there is none of that wiring to write.

Configuring the drawer#

<CopilotThreadsDrawer> works with zero props. The optional ones:

Prop	Description
`agentId`	Agent whose threads to list (defaults to the chat configuration's agent).
`label`	Accessible name for the drawer region and thread listbox. Defaults to `"Threads"`. The redesigned header has no visible title.
`recentLabel`	Section heading shown above the thread list. Defaults to `"Recent Conversations"`.
`onThreadSelect`	Escape hatch to take over thread selection yourself.
`onNewThread`	Escape hatch to handle the "New Conversation" row yourself.
`renderRow`	Render custom content per row (keeps the row chrome around it).
`limit`	Page size for pagination — shows a "Load more" control while more threads remain. Omit to load all at once.

See the CopilotThreadsDrawer reference for the full prop and type list.

Customization#

The drawer renders in a shadow root with self-contained, theme-inheriting styles, so it looks correct in any app (including dark mode) with no config. Three bounded escape hatches pierce the boundary:

Slots — project children with a slot attribute (header, empty, footer, memories, launcher-icon):

<CopilotThreadsDrawer>
  <span slot="header">My conversations</span>
</CopilotThreadsDrawer>

Per-row content — the renderRow prop projects custom content into each row while the element keeps selection, archived styling, and the per-row kebab (⋮) menu (Archive/Delete).
CSS parts + variable tokens — restyle structural ::part()s or override --cpk-drawer-* tokens. The full list is in the reference.

License#

Threads require CopilotKit Intelligence. Without a license key, the drawer shows a locked view in place of the list.

Threads — set up the platform and the headless useThreads data layer
CopilotThreadsDrawer reference (React)
CopilotChat — the chat the drawer connects to