ncode CLI Using ncode

Agents: panel, hints, overlay

A big task is split across agents: the assistant or a swarm's lead starts workers, each with its own brief, and every tool call of every agent is its own step. The side panel shows them all at once, and the agent overlay shows one of them in full.

The side panel#

Ctrl+B cycles the panel through three sizes:

Size	What you see
full	one row per agent with its name, a status line and one figure
compact	a narrower panel
hidden	no panel; the transcript takes the width

Under 120 columns the panel becomes a one-line strip at the edge, or is off. /panel full, /panel compact and /panel hidden set the size directly; your choice is kept for the next session.

Workflow and consensus runs also draw their own sections in the panel: the phases of a workflow, the rounds of a judged plan.

Reading an agent row#

Rows are sorted by attention. Each row has:

a name the model gave the agent when it started it (for example "Audit the auth tests");
a status line, a short sentence written by a model about what the agent is doing right now;
one figure; a $ amount appears only when the agent's cost is known (a price is set for its model).

An agent stopped because it used up its turns is shown as such, not as a finished report.

AI status lines#

The status lines are written by a model. Turn them off with /panel summaries off (and back on with /panel summaries on), or with AI status lines in Settings → Layout & transcript.

Hint mode#

Ctrl+F (or Ctrl+Space) puts a letter badge before every agent in the panel:

press an agent's letter to open its overlay;
press a digit to show one run, or 0 to open the runs dashboard (every run);
press Ctrl+F again to jump to the next approval or question, like Ctrl+N;
Esc cancels.

Hint letters never answer an approval. Hint mode also works over an approval card: the letter opens the overlay of the agent that asked. The letters used for badges can be changed under Hint letters in Settings → Keys & input.

The agent overlay#

A badge letter, or Enter on an agent row in select mode, opens that agent full screen:

its request, if it is waiting for you, with the approval keys;
its life on a time axis;
its brief and its findings;
what it did, grouped; o lists every raw operation;
where it sits in the run;
a composer that steers only this agent: a message you send here goes to it, not to the whole run.

Key	Does
`[` / `]`	previous / next agent of the run
`Tab`	move between the request, the activity and the composer
`o`	every raw operation
`x`	stop this agent (asks first)
`Esc`	back to the chat, at the same scroll and with the same draft

The approval letters and o, [, ], x act only while the overlay's composer is empty. Here a is a second key for "allow once", beside y.

Runs dashboard and run palette#

A conversation can have several runs at once: a chat turn, a swarm, a workflow, a plan. The run tabs above the transcript switch between them (Alt+1 … Alt+4); Ctrl+G opens the runs dashboard and Ctrl+R the run palette, to find and open a run. /stop stops everything running in the conversation.

What an agent can do#

Agents act only through tools. Each tool call is its own step you can watch, and file tools are confined to the project folder.

Group	Tools	Notes
Read	`read_file`, `list_dir`, `find_files`, `grep`, `lsp`	`grep` and `find_files` use ripgrep when `rg` is installed
Write	`write_file`, `edit_file`, `edit_files`, `move_file`, `delete_file`	a snapshot of each file is taken before it changes; `edit_files` changes several files all or nothing
Run	`run_command`	a command still running after 10 seconds moves to the background, where it can be checked or stopped
Git	`git_status`, `git_diff`, `git_log`, `git_commit`
Web	`web_search`, `web_fetch`	search uses the engines you enabled, in your order
Memory	`remember`	adds a dated line to the project's memory file
Team	`spawn_agent`, `message_agent`, `inbox`, `wait_for_message`, `agent_result`, `integrate_agent`, `start_swarm`	sub-agents, messages between agents, merging an isolated agent's changes
Ask	`ask_user`	the assistant and a lead may ask you a question; workers may not
Plans	`submit_plan`, `write_spec`	only in judged (consensus) runs
Workflows	`workflow_list`, `workflow_smoke_check`, `workflow_save`, `workflow_run`, `workflow_control`	only the top-level assistant
MCP	every tool of every enabled MCP server	per-tool switches let you turn single tools off

run_command keeps up to 160,000 characters of output by default (an agent may ask for up to 512,000). Whether a write or a command needs your approval depends on the project's approval mode.

Limits#

How many agents may run at once, how deep they may start sub-agents, how many turns each may take and how long a sub-agent may run are settings in Agents & limits (by default: 4 at once, depth 2, 60 turns, 30 minutes). Sub-agents work in isolated copies of the project by default, and their changes are merged back when the lead integrates them.