Question confidential: Asking questions in private with Unblocked’s Incognito Mode

November 13, 2024

We’ve all had questions we’re hesitant to ask - maybe it is expected that you already know the answer, or, you don’t want to seem foolish in a larger group.

That’s why Unblocked has Incognito Mode. With Incognito Mode, you can ask as many questions as you need to - even the most basic ones - without the fear of being judged.

Incognito Mode is available in all Unblocked clients - the web experience, IDE extensions, desktop app or by sending a DM to the Unblocked Slack bot.

Getting started with Incognito mode is straightforward - simply toggle the “eye” icon in any of Unblocked clients you ask questions in:

The best use cases for Incognito mode

There are a few scenarios where Incognito Mode can be especially helpful:

When you’re new to a team: As a new hire, it’s normal to have a lot of questions. Incognito mode helps you to explore a new codebase on your own, giving you the context you need without interrupting your coworkers or putting you at risk of being judged.
When an issue needs investigation: When you’re looking into a sensitive issue, you may want to gather initial information privately. Incognito Mode helps you identify possible causes without prematurely involving other people.
When you need to make a big change: If you’re considering refactoring part of the codebase or addressing long standing technical debt, you might want to scope out the potential impact before proposing changes. Using Incognito Mode, you can map out a plan without signalling a major project before you’re ready to discuss it.

Incognito Mode in Slack

Incognito Mode is especially powerful in Slack.

You can, of course, ask Unblocked questions in any channel by simply @-mentioning the Unblocked Slack bot, but this can create distractions for others in the channel.

To avoid noise, use Incognito Mode in Slack by DMing your question to the Unblocked bot. You can find Unblocked by searching for “Unblocked” in your DMs. Like other Slack conversations, you can ask as many follow-up questions as you need right in your DM.

The Incognito Mode: A trade-off

Many teams encourage questions so that everyone benefits from tribal knowledge that is built up over time.

When you ask a public question to Unblocked, it contributes back to the Unblocked knowledge base for your team.

For example, if you’re using the Unblocked IDE extensions, you will see prior (public) questions in the insights panel for the file you have open, along with other relevant context from other connected data sources.

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This shared history helps everyone find answers to commonly asked questions, and can also be a jumping-off point for new questions that may arise.

In contrast, Incognito Mode provides complete privacy for your inquiries and these questions will not be discoverable to the rest of your team.

Different teams like to work in different ways, and one of our goals is to support however you want to work.

Tips for using Incognito Mode

Switch modes seamlessly: You can easily toggle between public and incognito modes without changing clients or environments. Simply update your visibility with the Incognito Mode toggle in the Unblocked web and desktop apps, or the IDE extensions.

Once you’ve enabled Incognito Mode, all your new questions will default to private unless you make an answer visible to your team or toggle back to public mode.

Loop in coworkers in private mode: If you ask a question in incognito mode but need further clarification from a coworker, you can still loop them in private mode. Simply @mention them in your question, and they will be notified to respond. Note that your question will only be shared with the people you mention.

When in doubt, start in private: If you're unsure whether to ask publicly or privately, start in Incognito Mode—you can always make your question public later.

Convert private to public: If you later decide that a private question can be public, you don’t need to ask it again—you can convert it with one click. The answer will then appear on your team’s Team Questions page, and can be surfaced as relevant context in the Unblocked IDE extensions.

Powerful results, no matter how you ask

Incognito Mode is just one of the features that makes Unblocked a valuable tool for software development teams.

Teams who use Unblocked to get answers save time, make better decisions, and ship their work faster, but you don’t just have to take our word for it:

“Unblocked has been a game-changer for our team. Instead of waiting for someone to reply to my Slack message, I can instantly find what I need. It saves time, doesn’t bug my coworkers, and spares me the headache of figuring out who to ask. It’s a win-win.”