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Title: Nested chat
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!!! example "Try it on the AG2 Playground"
    See nested chat live at [playground.ag2.ai](https://playground.ag2.ai){:target="_blank"} — no setup required.

A powerful method to encapsulate a single workflow into an agent is through AG2's nested chats.

### How Nested Chats Work

Nested chats is powered by the nested chats handler, which is a pluggable component of [`ConversableAgent`](/docs/api-reference/autogen/ConversableAgent). The figure below illustrates how the nested chats handler triggers a sequence of nested chats when a message is received.

![nested_chat](../assets/nested-chats.png)

When a message comes in and passes the human-in-the-loop component, the nested chats handler checks if the message should trigger a nested chat based on conditions specified by the user.

If the conditions are met, the nested chats handler starts a sequence of nested chats specified using the sequential chats pattern.

In each of the nested chats, the sender agent is always the same agent that triggered the nested chats.

In the end, the nested chat handler uses the results of the nested chats to produce a response to the original message (by default a summary of the last chat).

### Example: Encapsulating Complex Workflows

Here is an example of a nested chat where a single agent, `lead_teacher_agent` encapsulates a workflow involving five other agents. This inner workflow includes two-agent chats and a group chat.

The end result is that when this agent is called to reply in a chat it will, internally, run through a workflow using the nested chats and a fully considered lesson plan will be returned as its reply.

![Nested chat](../assets/nested_chats_process.png)

import Example from "/snippets/python-examples/nestedchat.mdx";

<Example/>


### Benefits and Further Resources

Nested chat is a useful conversation pattern that allows you to package complex workflows into a single agent.

For further information on setting up a nested chat, see the [`register_nested_chats`](/docs/api-reference/autogen/ConversableAgent#register-nested-chats) API reference and this [notebook](/docs/use-cases/notebooks/notebooks/agentchat_nested_chats_chess).
