Attention and notifications
The attention queue of agents waiting for you, system notifications, the inbox, sounds, quiet hours and the app icon.
When you run many agents at once, the attention queue keeps track of the ones waiting for you, across every environment. It feeds the count on the app icon, the system notifications shown while the window is in the background, the attention inbox and the shortcut that jumps to the next waiting agent.
The attention queue
An agent joins the queue for one of four kinds of event:
| Kind | When |
|---|---|
| Permissions | The agent asks for permission to run a tool |
| Asks | The agent asks a question, wants a plan approved or waits for input |
| Errors | The chat's harness stopped the turn with an error |
| Finished | The agent finished its turn while you were not looking at it |
The queue is ordered permissions first, then asks, errors and finished turns, oldest first within each kind. An agent appears in it once, under its latest kind.
- A finished turn or an error is not queued when you are watching that agent: the window is in front, its environment is on screen and its tab has the focus.
- Opening an agent clears its finished turn and its error. A permission or an ask stays in the queue until it is answered.
- An agent leaves the queue when it is closed.
Go to the next waiting agent
The shortcut, or Go to the next agent waiting for you in the command palette, opens the next agent in queue order, switching environment if needed. Pressed again, it moves on to the one after. With nothing waiting, a toast says "No agent is waiting for you".
| Action | Keys |
|---|---|
| Go to the next agent waiting for you | Cmd+Shift+J |
| Open the attention inbox | Cmd+Alt+A |
The attention inbox
The bell in the top bar, labelled "Agents waiting for you", opens the attention inbox. It is closed until you open it, and the bell takes the attention colour while an agent waits. The palette command is Toggle attention inbox.
The inbox has two parts:
- Waiting for you: the attention queue, in its order. Click a row to open that agent.
- History: the most recent events, up to 100, newest first. Clear history empties it.
Filters at the top narrow both parts to one kind: All, Finished, Asks, Permissions or Errors.
Notifications
While the window is in the background, the app shows a system notification when an agent joins the queue, as long as the kind's rule allows it:
| Kind | Notification title |
|---|---|
| Permissions | An agent asks for permission |
| Asks | An agent needs you |
| Errors | An agent ran into an error |
| Finished | An agent finished |
The body names the tab and the environment, and for a permission or an ask, what it is about. Clicking the notification brings the window to the front and opens that agent. A notification is taken away once its agent leaves the queue.
Answer from notifications
With Answer from notifications on, a permission notification offers Approve and Deny, so you can answer without opening the app. If the agent has moved on to another question by the time you answer, nothing is sent and the app says "The agent asks something else now; open it to answer".
Settings › Notifications
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| System notifications | Turns every kind of notification on or off at once |
| Answer from notifications | Adds Approve and Deny to permission notifications |
| Events | Per kind (Finished, Asks, Permissions, Errors): Notify, Sound and Count it |
| Play sounds | In the background only, or Always, also while you use the app |
| Quiet hours | On or off, with From and Until times moved in steps of 30 minutes |
| App icon | Whether the app icon shows that agents wait |
| Shortcuts | The two shortcuts above, for reference |
By default every kind notifies and counts, and plays no sound.
Sounds
Each kind can play None, Chime, Ping, Pop or Bell. Picking one in Settings plays it once so you can hear it.
Quiet hours and muted sessions
Quiet hours are a daily span, 22:00 to 08:00 by default and off until you turn them on. A span may cross midnight. During quiet hours no notification is shown and no sound plays; the attention queue, the inbox and the app icon count still fill.
A session can be muted from the bell button on its row in the sidebar, "Mute notifications and sounds from this session". A muted session is quiet all day, and its agents are also left out of the app icon count. The same button, "Notify again about this session", turns it back on.
Per platform
- App icon. The Dock icon shows a badge with the number of waiting agents that count, and clears it when none does. The setting is labelled Dock badge.
- Sounds. The five sounds play the system sounds Glass, Ping, Pop and Submarine.
The attention queue covers chats and agents in terminals alike, on this computer and on remote hosts. Automations report through it too; see Automations.
See Keyboard for every shortcut.
Session templates and issues
JSON templates in the repository that set a new session's harness, model, worktree, MCP servers, name and first prompt, and sessions started from a GitHub or GitLab issue.
Usage and cost
The usage bar with each harness's subscription windows, the spend of sessions, Workers and groups, and the budget per group.