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Watch, steer, and stop Coder

A Coder run lives in its chat. You can follow it, add to it, answer it, or stop it from the Mac app, the Terminal, the openagents command, or your phone.

Follow along

  • The run's first card names the coding agent, the model, why that agent, and the project.
  • Each step shows as a short line: reads and searches fold into one row ("Read 3 files, Searched 2 patterns"); each command or edit has its own row with its result. Click a row on the Mac, or press Ctrl+O in the Terminal, to see it in full.
  • The working line shows the step, Jev's estimate of how much is done, and the time: "Coder is working · step 5 · ≈40% done · 9s".
  • On the phone, the Coder card shows how long Coder has worked and, at the end, how the run ended.

Closing the app or the Terminal doesn't stop the run. Open the chat again and it follows the run from the start. From a shell: openagents chat follow --thread ID.

Send more while it works

Enter to send, Ctrl+Enter to queue for later (⌘+Enter on the Mac).

  • Send (or Enter) sends now, even while Coder works: it stops the current turn and continues with your message, or, before a turn starts, steers it.
  • Queue (or Ctrl+Enter) keeps your message for after the current turn. On the Mac, the queue shows each message with Send now and Remove; on the phone, Edit queue changes what's waiting.
  • Shift+Enter adds a line.

On the phone, long-press send and choose Queue for next turn to queue. With a hardware keyboard, the phone takes the same keys.

Answer a question

When Coder asks a question, or asks to go ahead with a step, it shows as a card in the chat. Answer by typing in the chat (on the Mac, an approval also has Approve and Deny). Your answer is information for Coder; it never widens what Coder may do.

Follow up after it finishes

A message after a run finishes goes to OpenAgents with what the run did. A question such as "what did you change?" is answered in the chat. A request for more work, such as "now add a test", continues the same task, in the same copy of your project.

Stop it

  • Mac app: Stop Coder.
  • Phone: Stop on the run, or the stop button in its chat.
  • Terminal: Esc or /stop.
  • Shell: openagents chat stop --thread ID.

The run ends as stopped, and the chat says so. Its work so far stays in its copy of your project.

Next: Worktrees and changes.