The Capsule
Keep an eye on every running agent from a corner of your screen. The Nebula Capsule shows live work, unread results, and calls across all your workspaces.
The Capsule is a small always-on-top surface that tells you what your agents are doing without you opening Nebula. It watches every workspace you're a member of, not just the one you have open.
It's on by default, sitting at the top centre of your screen.
Threads
All- Design syncAC
- Deploy staging buildAC
- Competitor pricing sweepAC
- Q3 pricing reviewAC3
- Weekly metrics digestFW
+4 earlier
What it looks like
The Capsule spends most of its time as a small resting shape and grows only when something happens.
A small lozenge with two counts: how many runs are going right now, and how many finished results you haven't read.
A card peeks out to say a run started or finished, then folds away on its own after a few seconds. Several things at once merge into one card rather than stacking up. Hover to stop the clock while you read.
Hover the resting shape to open the full panel, or click to pin it open. Inside is a single Threads lane — one list, with whatever is live or waiting on you sorted to the top — plus a Mine / All switch beside the heading and a link to open Nebula proper at the bottom.
Two things don't fold away on their own — an agent that needs you and a live call. Anything blocking work stays put until you deal with it.
Reading the colours
The Capsule says most of what it has to say without words. Three colours carry the whole language, and they mean the same thing everywhere they appear — on the orb, on a card, and on every row in the panel.
| Colour | Means | Where you'll see it |
|---|---|---|
| Green | Something is moving right now | Running counts, working rows, live calls, progress bars |
| Amber | Something is waiting on you | Unread results, an agent needing an answer, a workspace reconnecting |
| Grey | Settled — nothing being asked of you | Finished and read rows |
The useful shorthand: green is Nebula working, amber is Nebula waiting on you. If there's no amber anywhere, nothing needs you.
Movement means live
Colour tells you the kind of thing; movement tells you whether it's happening now.
A gently pulsing green dot is work in progress. The aurora sphere at the centre of the orb also turns faster and breathes while agents are running, so a busy Capsule looks busy from across the room.
Amber never pulses. A result waiting for you isn't urgent in the same way, so it sits still rather than competing with live work for your attention.
After about seven quiet seconds the whole Capsule dims down to stay out of your way. It brightens the moment something changes, or when you move your pointer near it — so a faded Capsule means "nothing has happened in a while", not "nothing is running".
The orb's own signals
The resting orb physically grows and shrinks with what it has to report — narrowest with nothing to say, wider with one count, widest with both. You can read it peripherally without focusing on the numbers.
The little aurora sphere is always there. Turning slowly means idle; turning faster with a soft green glow means agents are working.
A thin amber ring around the sphere means results are waiting and nothing is currently running — the state where the only thing outstanding is you.
Dots, badges, and bars
Inside cards and panel rows, the same language shows up in smaller pieces.
| Indicator | Means |
|---|---|
| Pulsing green dot | Working right now |
| Live dot | A call is running |
| Amber dot | Needs your answer |
| A number | How many messages you haven't read |
| Amber dot in the panel header | A workspace is reconnecting, so counts may be stale |
The header's amber dot clears itself once the connection comes back — you don't have to restart anything.
What a row tells you
A row is deliberately spare — an icon, the title, and one thing on the right. It's a list of places to go, not a feed to read, so there are no timestamps and no summaries.
The icon on the left says where the thread came from: a call, a job, a conversation with an agent, a miniapp, or a channel. On the right sits whichever single thing matters most — a dot if it's live, waiting on you, or being worked on, and otherwise a count of what you haven't read. Hover a row and that right-hand slot becomes the row's quick action. When you're in more than one workspace, a small badge names which one it belongs to, and clicking it switches you there.
Working from the panel
Clicking a row takes you where that thread actually lives rather than to a generic chat view.
| Row | Opens |
|---|---|
| A live call | The call room |
| A job | That job's own page, with its runs and schedule |
| An agent conversation | The agent's page |
| A miniapp thread | The miniapp |
| Anything else | The thread, in its channel |
Clicking an unread row marks it read. Clicking a live row just opens it — it won't interrupt the run. The ✕ dismisses a card you're done with.
If a thread belongs to a different workspace than the one you have open, clicking it opens that thread in its own window rather than switching your whole app over.
A request for your approval stays put until you answer it, even while the agent keeps working and talking around it. It won't quietly disappear on you.
Calls in the Capsule
You can start a call from the Capsule, not just control one that's already going. The fastest way in is QuickLive — ⌘ ⇧ C from any app. With no call running it starts a one-to-one call with your Nebula and puts you on the mic; with one already going it brings that call back up.
The in-call card
For as long as you're on a call, the resting orb is replaced by a steady card that stays put. It doesn't fold away and it doesn't grow on its own.
The top line is the call itself — a live dot and the call's title, with fresh captions and dispatched work rotating through as they happen. The bottom line is the working half: how long you've been on, a Screen aware dot when the agent can see your screen, who's speaking, and three controls — mute your microphone, mute the agent's audio, and leave the call.
Click the card body and the live view opens out of it, in place. From there Open the full room moves the call into its own window.
Moving a call into its own window hands it over rather than reconnecting — you stay on the call throughout. It arrives muted, so unmute once the window comes up.
The live view carries the whole call in one column: what people said, anything typed, and your agent's activity in the order it happened. There's a composer at the bottom, so you can take part by typing without going on voice at all.
While it's open you can drag it anywhere on screen and it stays where you drop it — it won't snap back to its corner, and clicking elsewhere won't fold it away mid-call. Collapse it, press Esc, or end the call and the Capsule returns to its usual spot.
Settings
Open the gear in the panel header.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Position | Pick which of six screen corners and edges it lives in |
| Threads | All activity in your workspaces, or just Mine |
| Size | Small, medium, or large |
| Workspaces | Mute individual workspaces so their activity doesn't surface |
| Show capsule | Turn it off entirely |
On a shared screen, mute the workspaces you're not presenting — or turn the Capsule off from the same menu.
Notifications on desktop
The Capsule is the notification system on desktop. The app doesn't post operating-system notifications, so nothing lands in macOS Notification Center or the Windows action center — activity surfaces in the Capsule and in your Nebula inbox instead.
Email, mobile push, and chat-app delivery all still work as configured. See Notifications.
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