# Knowing when an agent needs you

> An agent that needs an answer stops and waits. The terminal's job is to make the wait visible without making you watch.

Part of the reachpad docs: https://reachpad.dev/docs. Rendered page: https://reachpad.dev/docs/agent-status.

## Every tab carries its state

Each workspace tab shows what its session is doing: working, or stopped and waiting on you: a question to answer or a permission to grant. Coming back to the pad is a matter of scanning the tab strip and answering the tabs that are waiting, not opening each one to check.

## The notification bell

Messages from your workspaces collect under the bell in the terminal, so something that happened while you were away is still readable when you get back. Desktop notifications can be enabled from the same place.

## Waiting is cheap here

On a laptop, an agent blocked on a question at minute five wastes the whole lunch break. On a pad the run has not died and the machine has not slept: the twenty minutes you were away cost twenty minutes.