> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.provisionapp.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Conversation urgency

> How ProVision prioritizes conversations for routing, queues, and response expectations.

Urgency is the priority signal for a conversation. It tells ProVision and your team how
quickly the work should be handled, independent of where the conversation is in the
lifecycle.

Status answers "what state is this conversation in?" Urgency answers "how important is it?"
An `urgent` conversation can still be `open`, `snoozed`, or `solved`; the urgency describes
priority, not workflow state.

For exact request and response schemas, see
[Get conversation details](/api-reference/conversation/get-conversation-details) and
[Update conversation](/api-reference/conversation/update-conversation) in the API
Reference.

## Urgency values

ProVision ships these platform default urgency levels:

| Urgency       | Business meaning                                                          |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `low`         | Lower-priority work that can wait behind normal active conversations.     |
| `normal`      | Standard priority. New conversations default to this urgency.             |
| `urgent`      | High-priority work that should be handled ahead of normal conversations.  |
| `life_safety` | Highest-priority work involving life-safety or immediate safety concerns. |

Use urgency when your integration needs to sort work, escalate notifications, or decide
which conversations should be shown first. Do not use urgency as a replacement for status:
a low-urgency conversation can still be open work, and a life-safety conversation can still
move through the same status lifecycle as any other conversation.

## Working with urgency in the API

* Read `urgency` from
  [Get conversation details](/api-reference/conversation/get-conversation-details).
* Update `urgency` with
  [Update conversation](/api-reference/conversation/update-conversation) when your API key
  has `conversation:write`.
* Treat the string values as stable ids for the platform defaults.
* Keep business rules for urgency separate from status rules. For example, changing urgency
  should not imply that a conversation has been solved, closed, or reopened.