Attention Inbox
One place to see what your agents need from you — questions, permission requests, finished work to try — with one card per agent, answered right in the sidebar.
The Attention Inbox shows what your agents are waiting on you for, without opening each session. It lives on the Sessions tab of the right sidebar, with one card per agent.
Use it when several agents are running and you want to know which of them needs you, and for what.
Opening the Inbox
The Attention button sits at the right end of the search field at the top of the Sessions tab. Click it, or press ⌥⌘I, and the session list is replaced by the Inbox. If the sidebar is hidden or showing Usage, ⌥⌘I brings the Sessions tab back. The same command is in the menu bar as Attention Inbox.
The button tells you where things stand:
| Button | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Tray | Nothing is unread. Cards you've read can still be in the Inbox. |
| Solid pink hexagon | At least one item is unread. |
| Left arrow | The Inbox is open. Click it to go back to your sessions. |
The button has no number on it. Hover over it to see how many items are unread. It stays pink until every item has been marked as read or has closed.
To leave the Inbox, click the left arrow, press ⌥⌘I again, or click the Sessions title.
The Inbox is per window. It shows the agents listed in that window's Sessions tab, and each window has its own count.
What lands in the Inbox
| What | From | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Session requests | A Scape session, automatically, when its agent reports it's waiting on you. pi and omp don't report this, and Copilot doesn't report permission prompts. | "Claude Code is waiting for permission (Bash)", "Claude Code asked a question", "Codex needs your attention" |
| Agent items | An agent that posts one | A decision it's stuck on, with buttons to choose from |
| Agent status | An agent that sets one | A line saying what's ready for you to try |
An agent finishing its turn and going idle doesn't put anything in the Inbox.
Backchannels, Rendezvous, and Flight Plans aren't part of the Inbox. They keep their own unread indicators.
Cards
Each card belongs to one agent: a session or an Argus. It shows:
- The agent's avatar and name. Click either to open its session.
- A dot if anything on the card is unread.
- Argus, if it's an Argus.
- The agent's status, if it has set one, always in full, ending with how long ago it changed.
- While the card is collapsed, N unread and the newest item's title. It says All read if you've read everything open, or Resolved if nothing's left open.
Click the card, or its chevron, to show its items. Right-click a card for Open Session, Clear Status, and Show Items or Hide Items. Cards are ordered with the newest news first.
An Argus's card collects everything from its manager session. Its children have their own cards.
What counts as unread
A new item is unread until you press Mark Read on it. Nothing else marks an item read: opening or leaving the Inbox, collapsing a card, and clicking or typing in the agent's session all leave it unread. You can't mark an item unread again.
An item also stops counting once it closes: when you answer or dismiss it, or when the agent's need ends.
Mark Read covers the version on screen. If the item's content changes after that, for example when an agent updates it, it's unread again.
A status doesn't count as unread and has no Mark Read. When an agent changes its status, the text updates quietly and the button doesn't turn pink.
Answering
Expand a card to see its items, with their titles, bodies, and your replies in full. What you can do depends on the item.
Session requests show what the session is waiting for, with an Open session button. You answer them in the session itself. The item closes once the session moves on, or shortly after the session is removed from Scape.
A session can stop running and still be listed in Sessions. Its request then stays in the Inbox, marked not running, because Scape can't tell whether it's still waiting. Removing the session from Scape closes the request.
Agent items can have:
- Buttons — up to three, chosen by the agent. Pressing one sends your choice to the agent. Buttons don't run anything in Scape.
- Reply — opens a reply box. Return sends, Shift-Return adds a new line, and Escape or the ✕ closes it. An agent can turn replies off.
- Open link — opens the agent's link in a browser tab in Scape.
To open the agent's session from one of its items, click the avatar or name on the card.
Your first answer closes the item, so it no longer counts as needing you. It stays on the open card, showing what happened to your answer, until you collapse the card or leave the Inbox. While it's there you can use Reply to add more, if the agent allows replies. The buttons are gone by then: only the first choice counts.
If an item expires or is withdrawn while you're typing a reply, it stays on screen with your draft and tells you the agent won't receive it.
What the ✕ does
The same ✕ does different things in different places:
| Where | Effect | Is the agent told? |
|---|---|---|
| On an agent's status | Clears the status. | Yes, once. |
| On an open item | Dismisses it. It leaves the card and can't be replied to. | Not directly. An agent that checks the item sees it was dismissed. |
| On an answered item | Takes it off the card until you leave the Inbox. Nothing is recorded. | No. |
Dismissing a session request doesn't answer it. The session is still waiting until you respond there.
Did my answer arrive?
Scape delivers your answer by pasting it into the agent's session, so it waits for the right moment. Your answer shows on the item, marked Replied or Selected, with how long ago you sent it and +N earlier if you've sent more than one. Click that to show your earlier answers, and Hide earlier to put them away. An answer that reached the session shows nothing more. Otherwise it says what happened, including why it failed or hasn't gone yet, when Scape knows. Hover for details.
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Not sent yet, or Queued for the agent | It hasn't gone yet. |
| Waiting: the agent is busy or asking for permission | Scape is holding it until the agent can take it. |
| Not sent: and a reason, such as session ended | It won't be delivered. |
| Couldn't send | It won't be delivered, and Scape has no more detail. |
| Checking… | Scape is working out whether it arrived. |
| May not have arrived | Scape can't tell. |
When Scape can't tell, it checks the session's transcript where it can. If it can prove the answer never arrived, it sends it again once on its own. Otherwise the item returns to the Inbox as needing you, with Send again. Hover over it to see that the agent may get your answer twice.
If Scape has restarted from a backup, it may not be able to tell which of several answers an agent received. The item then asks you to choose, with options such as Keep, Send, or Leave it.
No history view
The Inbox shows what's open. There's no history view in the app: once you leave the Inbox, answered items are gone from it. Scape keeps closed items for 30 days, up to 2,000 of them, and an agent can read back its own with list_attention.
What agents can do
Any agent running in a Scape session can use the Inbox, as can an Argus manager. An Argus's children are told not to: they send everything for you to their manager. Scape works out who's calling, so an agent can't post under another agent's name. It can only see, change, or withdraw its own items. Other agents' open items are only counted for it.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
post_attention | Post an item, with optional buttons, a reply box, and a link. |
list_attention | Read its own items and your answers. |
revoke_attention | Withdraw one of its own open items. |
set_attention_status | Set its one status line. Setting it again replaces the text. |
clear_attention_status | Clear its status line. |
Everything an agent posts appears as plain text, without Markdown or clickable links. Only the Open link button opens a link, and it has to be https.
Limits
| Limit | |
|---|---|
| Open items | 10 per agent, 100 per Mac |
| Writes | 60 per agent in any 24 hours |
| Bursts | 3 at once, then one every 5 seconds |
| Title | 140 characters and 512 bytes |
| Body | 2 KB |
| Buttons | 3, with labels up to 24 characters and 96 bytes, and 512 bytes of JSON for all the buttons together |
| Link | 1 KB, https only |
| Expiry (optional) | 5 minutes to 7 days |
| Status | One per agent, 1–280 characters, one line, one change every 30 seconds |
Withdrawing an item doesn't use up writes, and statuses don't count against the item or write limits. An agent can also pass a dedupe_key to update its open item instead of posting another, which counts as a write but not as another open item.
Write limits are tracked in memory, so they reset when Scape restarts. The open-item limits don't.
Getting your answer
Agents should poll list_attention while they wait, because Scape can't guarantee an answer reaches a session by itself. Scape also pastes your answer into the session when it can, so an agent can see it either way.
An agent can't withdraw an item you've already answered. If it has no more use for an open one, it can withdraw it, and the item leaves your Inbox.
Status lines
A status says what's going on for you, such as finished work to review or try. It updates quietly and never alerts you, so agents are told to post an item for anything you must notice, including a question only you can answer. They're also told to set a status before ending a turn on finished work for you to try or review, and to name the features in plain words, rather than report progress or counts.
A status ends when you clear it, when the agent clears it, or shortly after its session is removed from Scape or its Argus is deleted. A session that has stopped but is still listed keeps its status. Only you clearing it sends the agent a notice.
When you're away
The moon button sits just before the Attention button. Click it to go Away, and click it again to come back. While you're Away or Offline, the word shows beside it, unless the search field has text in it.
Agents on Claude Code and Codex then use only the Inbox: they post their questions as items instead of asking in the session. Scape tells them you're away and, in most cases, refuses their question prompts if they try anyway. An Argus manager that's blocked normally asks in its session, but uses the Inbox while you're away. Your agents keep working in the meantime.
Some things still wait in the session:
- Permission prompts. You answer these in the session, and the item says so.
- Claude Code's plan mode. It still asks in the session.
- Questions already open. A question asked before you left stays in the session, and its item says the agent is waiting there.
- Questions typed as ordinary text. Scape can't stop these.
- Some Codex sessions. Scape can only refuse a Codex prompt if the session started with Scape's status hooks, on a Codex version Scape has already checked. A session using a custom Codex command, or one started before that check finished, can still ask in the session.
- Other agents. Other harnesses and SSH sessions aren't covered. The Inbox lists running agents that weren't told, because they may still ask in their session.
Away applies to this Mac only.
iCloud sync
Inbox items and your answers sync through your iCloud account, along with what's been read. Item text and your replies are stored in CloudKit's encrypted fields. For session requests, the branch or folder name stays on the Mac it came from, and only the harness name (such as Claude Code) syncs. For links, only the host name syncs.
A few other details:
- Not synced on an item means it's too large for iCloud. It stays on this Mac.
- Signing out of iCloud or switching accounts removes the synced items and answers from this Mac.
Here, Away, and Offline
Your status decides when a session request can start syncing. Set it by clicking your avatar in the left sidebar's footer. The moon button also switches between Here and Away.
| Status | New session requests | Buddies see you as |
|---|---|---|
| Here | Can sync once they've been waiting for 20 seconds. One that closes sooner stays on this Mac. | Online |
| Away | Can sync straight away. | Away |
| Offline | Stay on this Mac. One still open when you go Here or Away can sync then. | Away |
Once a request can sync, it stays that way. Going Offline doesn't stop it or its later changes from syncing.
These times are the earliest a request can sync, not how long it takes to arrive. Syncing also waits for Scape to confirm your iCloud account and finish fetching from iCloud.
Items and statuses that agents post sync in every mode.