Running several agents

One agent in one project is a session. Several of them is what the panes and the boards are for.

Starting more than one

⌘N talks to whichever agent the project last used, so it is the same agent every time. ⌥⌘N starts a session on the next agent installed — that is how a second one gets a turn while the first is still working.

Sessions run independently. A turn in one does not queue behind a turn in another, and each reports its own progress.

Sending cards to a session

▶ on a card, or on a column's heading, opens a menu of sessions to send it to: the session that last held the card, then the project's sessions most recently used, then New session.

• What is sent is a link to each card. A column sends its cards that are neither busy nor blocked, under the column's name.
• The session picked is written down on each card as the one that last held it, the way a session that made a card or tagged it busy is.
• The board stays up. A card spins an orb while an agent has it busy; clicking the orb follows the work into the transcript.

Watching them

What	Chord
Step between the panes on screen	⌃⌥⇥ and ⇧⌃⌥⇥
Close a tab in a space	⌘W
Toggle the sidebar	⌘B

Split the window into panes and drag a session into each, or save the arrangement as a space — one space can span projects. Each pane draws from its own state, so moving the focus does not move what the others are showing. See Panes, tabs and spaces.

A session shows what it is doing in place of its icon, on its sidebar row and its tab:

• an orb while a turn runs;
• a ring that breathes while the agent asks for permission;
• a circle with ! when the last turn failed, until the next message;
• a filled dot when a turn finished while the session was not on screen, until it is shown.

A space's tab, and its heading in the sidebar, show the most pressing of its sessions: asking, then failed, then finished, then running.

The board as the status of the work

A card's column says where the work is. On top of that, an agent tags a card busy through board_set_card_busy while it works on it, and can tag several cards in one write — as it can move several in one write through board_move_card. The convention the tools ask for: tag a card busy before starting on it and take the tag off when the turn is over, so a tag left behind never says an agent is on a card that nobody is.

A card that cannot go on until others are finished names them through board_set_card_blockers, and shows blocked until they are taken off it.

With a board per project, what is running — and what is stuck — is one screen rather than several transcripts.