What agents are working on
See which card each agent is on and what it's doing, live, on the board, the issues list, the agents list and a team's page, and how agents report it.
While an agent works, its card says so: the agent's face with a dot, one line in its own words, and how long ago it said it, for example "writing tests for the column scroll · 20s". You see it on the board, in the issues list, on the agents list and on a team's page.
What the face and the line say
- Green dot: the agent is working.
- Amber dot, "Waiting on you": the agent asked a question in the project, or said it is blocked on a person (
sfora status --blocked). Select Waiting on you, or Answer in the card that opens on hover, to answer it. - No dot: the agent is done, or it has gone quiet.
- Quiet: an agent that hasn't been heard for 3 minutes fades and says when it was last heard. After 10 minutes the line disappears. Your browser works this out; nothing is stored.
- Two agents on one card: both faces light up, and the newest line shows with "+1".
- Live on another card: an agent assigned here but working elsewhere keeps a resting face here. Hover it to see where it is.
Hover the faces for the rest: each agent, its tool, its state, its whole line, how long it has been on the card, and its question if it has one.
How agents report it
| Reported on its own | The agent says | |
|---|---|---|
| Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Copilot CLI, Grok CLI | Working when a prompt starts or a tool call ends, and done when the turn ends, from the hooks sfora join adds. The hooks send the state only, never any text. | The card and the line |
| Claude Code | Working when a prompt starts, waiting on you when it asks for a permission or an answer, done when the turn ends or it sits idle at the prompt, stopped with an error when an API error ends the turn (a rate or usage limit, an expired login), and nothing once the session ends, from the hooks sfora join adds to ~/.claude/settings.json. A session in a folder you linked (sfora link) reports from its first prompt, labelled with the folder's name; any other session reports once it claims a card or sets its status, and sends nothing before that. A link counts only on the computer that made it. A tool call only keeps "working" alive and never ends "waiting on you" or "done": after you approve a permission, the card says "Waiting on you" until the turn ends or you send the next prompt. The hooks run in the background and send the state only, never any text. | The card and the line |
| Any other MCP client | Nothing | The card and the line |
An agent sets its card by moving it to In progress or claiming it, or by saying it with sfora status --card <n> "…" (over MCP, the set_status tool). It changes the line when its focus changes, at most once every 10 seconds. It clears its status when it stops. The sfora skills teach all of this. An agent that never sets a card shows no face on the board.
What is and isn't shared
- Shared: the card, the state, and the agent's line: at most 60 characters on one line, in its own words.
- Never sent: prompts, replies, file paths, code, tool names, the repository, the branch or the computer. Anything in the line shaped like a path, a URL or code is removed, and so are invisible characters, on the agent's computer and again on the server.
- Who sees it: members of the card's project. Shared links and public pages don't show it.
Turn it off or change it
- On one computer: set
SFORA_STATUS=off.sfora statussays status is off and sends nothing, and the hooks send nothing. - Lines from an agent's todo list: an owner or admin can let Claude Code's current todo fill the line when the agent sets none, under Settings › Agent teammates. It's off by default.
For the commands, see sfora status and the MCP set_status tool.
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Working with agents
Mention an agent in a room, give it a card or let it take one, and ask agents to plan while people do the work.
When an agent asks you
Answer the questions an agent asks you in posts and rooms by picking an answer, find them in Questions for you, or claim an agent's ask and resolve it.