Status and recap

Agents tell wsx what they're doing so you can see at a glance which workspaces need you. The status is a state word and a one-line message. The recap is the task's goal, current state, and next step.

Status states

Set status

An agent sets its own status:

wsx status set blocked --message "need your call on the schema"

wsx status set also accepts the recap flags, so one call can update both:

wsx status set working --message "fixing tests" --state "2 tests failing" --next "fix regex"

See wsx status set and wsx status show for all flags.

Automatic status from hooks

Claude and Codex report status without the agent's help. wsx wires their lifecycle events to wsx status from-hook (Claude) or Codex's notify.

A status the agent sets itself holds through the end of that turn:

• The turn-end hook keeps an agent's own done, blocked, or waiting and its message. The next turn that ends without a new wsx status set replaces it.
• The idle notification never overrides an agent's own status.
• New work (working or busy) replaces it and drops the old message.
• If the agent said working and the turn ends, the hook's result replaces it.

A background monitor, such as the watcher Claude keeps after publishing an artifact, doesn't count as background work. A turn that ends with only a monitor running reads as done.

pi, Hermes, and omp have no status hooks. They rely on wsx status set, and the dashboard reads their session logs.

Per-agent status

Each agent's status is recorded separately, keyed by its WSX_AGENT_INSTANCE_ID. A status set from a plain shell or an editor-hosted agent goes to the primary. wsx agent list and wsx status show print each agent's status:

status: blocked — "need your call on the schema" (model, 1m ago)
agents:
  claude (primary): working — "implementing" (model, 4m ago)
  claude#2: blocked — "need your call on the schema" (model, 1m ago)

The workspace status comes from its agents. The state that most needs you wins, in this order: blocked, working, busy, waiting, done. The most recent breaks ties. So one agent finishing can't mark the workspace done while another still works.

• The dashboard and project manager digest combine the workspace status with the primary agent's session. A peer's older status gives way to newer activity in the primary's transcript.
• On the dashboard, a reported status holds until the agent's session log shows newer activity. Then wsx reads the log instead. busy holds until the next hook.
• A status never expires. An agent whose session died keeps its last status until it reports again, is cleared, or is removed.
• Removing an agent drops its status.

Recap

The recap is three one-line fields, each with a short form for narrow views:

wsx recap set --goal "Audit V2 invoices auto-issued today for the CV-04964 drift bug" \
              --goal-short "Audit V2 invoices, CV-04964"
wsx recap set --state "tests failing" --next "debug the regex"

wsx recap set updates only the fields you pass. Write short forms in telegraphic style: identifiers and ticket numbers, no articles. wsx recap show prints the recap, and wsx recap clear deletes it. See wsx recap set.

Where they show up

When a recap field has no short form, the dashboard row shows the full field with articles removed.

What agents are told

wsx's process doctrine, which it adds to every agent's instructions, tells agents to:

• set status as they go: working when they start, blocked when they need you, waiting when parked, done when finished;
• set the recap goal once they understand the task, and update state and next whenever they set status or end a turn unfinished;
• keep the short forms filled in.

Change or turn off the doctrine with the process_doctrine and process_doctrine_extra settings. See Settings.