What an intent is
An intent is a short, plain-text description of what you would be open to doing in the next little while. It is the only thing you broadcast on Signal.
Intents
An intent is a sentence. It is the only thing another participant ever sees about you while your session is active.
Why an intent and not a profile
A profile is permanent. Signal is temporary. An intent fits one sentence and one session. There is no profile feed, no avatar, no handle, no bio. There is the sentence you wrote for this session, and that is it.
How an intent relates to visibility
An intent is only visible while your session is active. When the timer ends, the intent ends with it. An intent is also the only thing that makes you visible: you cannot be on Signal without writing one for your current session.
Plain text, no metadata
Intents are plain text. There is no formatting, no emoji picker, no link previews, no author handle, no timestamp beyond what is needed to time the session.