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 in the top-right corner.
Live
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- Deploy staging build2m agoApprove action
Unread
1- Q3 pricing review18m ago2Summary ready — three options costed out.
Read
1- Weekly metrics digest3h agoSent to #leadership.
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: Live, Unread, and Read, with 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 |
| Green circle with a tick | Finished |
| Amber dot | Needs your answer, or unread |
| Faint grey dot | Read and done with |
| Amber number badge | How many unread messages in that thread |
| Green bar under a row | Progress — filling if the agent knows the steps, drifting if it doesn't yet |
3/7 beside the detail | Steps completed out of the total |
| Amber dot in the panel header | A workspace is reconnecting, so counts may be stale |
Read rows are also set in lighter text than unread ones, so the panel visibly settles down as you work through it.
Working from the panel
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.
Calls in the Capsule
When a call is running, the Capsule keeps a persistent face for it and expands into call controls — mute, agent audio, leave, microphone and speaker pickers, the live transcript, and the work dispatched from the call. You can join and take part with the main window closed.
The call still belongs to the main Nebula window under the hood. If that window reloads or the app updates itself mid-call, the call drops — the Capsule falls back to showing you the call rather than controlling it.
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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