Agent Sidebar
Applies to: Dispatch v1.0.0, last verified 2026-04-05
TL;DR: The left column groups agents into Live, Idle, Defined, and Archived. Click any agent to see its profile and sessions. Click a live agent to filter the center column to that persona’s work.
The agent sidebar occupies the left column on desktop. It shows every agent the system knows about, grouped into four sections based on liveness.
The four sections
Section titled “The four sections”Agents with a recent heartbeat file, or agents with an active session (from any supported provider). Live agents display gradient text and an animated green dot.
Click a live agent to apply a filter: the center column shows only epics and sessions for that persona. Click the agent again (or click the X on the filter chip) to clear the filter.
Agents whose heartbeat is stale (amber dot) or absent (grey dot). Click an idle agent to open their profile panel.
Defined
Section titled “Defined”Agents that have a .md file in ~/.claude/agents/ but have never run (no heartbeat history and no session data). Click to view the profile.
Starting (in-flight spawns)
Section titled “Starting (in-flight spawns)”When you click Run on an epic phase, the spawned agent briefly appears as a “Starting…” entry in the sidebar with its name and provider badge. This bridges the gap between when Dispatch sends the spawn request and when the agent’s first session file appears on disk. Once the session is detected by the file watcher or poller, the temporary entry is replaced by the real session card.
If the spawn fails, the “Starting…” entry is removed and an error event appears in the activity feed.
Archived
Section titled “Archived”Agents with enabled: false in their definition. Displayed with strikethrough text. This section is collapsed by default. Archived agents are excluded from live/idle status computation.
Clicking an agent: the profile panel
Section titled “Clicking an agent: the profile panel”Clicking any agent opens the Agent Profile Panel on the right side of the screen. The panel shows:
- Agent name, description, and model
- Assigned color swatch and emoji avatar (if set)
- Permitted tools list
- Live Sessions: every active session (from any provider) where this agent type is running. Clicking any session row opens the full Session Drawer.
When Dispatch has accumulated session history for the agent, the panel also shows an analytics section with:
| Item | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Tenure | First-seen date and how many days ago that was |
| Session sparkline | Daily session counts over the last 14 days |
| Token usage | Input, output, and cache token totals as gauge bars |
| Lines-of-code estimate | Write/Edit output token proxy, shown as a gauge |
| Thinking time | Estimated minutes spent in model reasoning (thinking tokens ÷ 600 ÷ 60) |
| Task completion ring | Completed tasks as a percentage of total tasks attempted |
| Top collaborators | The other agent types this agent has worked alongside most |
| Call origin | Split between board-initiated calls and peer-initiated calls |
| Performance score | Composite 0–100 score with an improving / stable / declining trend arrow |
| Epic contributions | Epics this agent has contributed phases to |
From the profile panel you can also:
- Click Edit to open the Agent Editor and modify the agent’s definition.
- Click View in Org Graph to open the Agent Team panel with this agent highlighted.
Context section
Section titled “Context section”The Context section sits below the agent list in the sidebar. It surfaces the Claude Code runtime configuration that your agents operate under, specifically the hooks and memory files that are active for the current workspace.
Data for this section is fetched once from GET /api/context when the dashboard loads. It does not poll; refresh the page to pick up configuration changes. Both the Hooks and Memories subsections are collapsed by default. Click the subsection heading to expand them.
The Hooks subsection lists every hook entry registered in your Claude Code settings. Each row shows the hook event type and the command or matcher that fires for it.
The five valid hook event types are:
| Event | When it fires |
|---|---|
PreToolUse | Before Claude calls a tool |
PostToolUse | After a tool call returns |
Notification | When Claude sends a notification |
Stop | When a top-level agent session ends |
SubagentStop | When a spawned subagent session ends |
Click any hook row to open the ContextPanel, a detail slide-in from the right that shows the full hook configuration including scope, matcher pattern, and the command being executed.
Memories
Section titled “Memories”The Memories subsection lists memory index files that Claude Code has loaded for the current workspace. Click any memory row to open the ContextPanel with the full memory content.
The Projects section
Section titled “The Projects section”At the bottom of the sidebar, a Projects section lists all registered projects. Clicking a project filters the center column to that project’s epics only, the same as clicking a project tab above the epic grid. Click again to clear.
New agent notifications
Section titled “New agent notifications”When Dispatch sees an agent type for the first time (based on a localStorage record of previously observed agents), a toast notification slides in from the bottom-right corner:
- Shows the agent name, inferred role category, and which agent spawned it (if known)
- Auto-dismisses after 8 seconds with a progress bar
- Click View in Org Graph to open the Agent Team panel with that agent highlighted
- Click ✕ to dismiss immediately
Multiple new agents queue up and display one at a time, stacked vertically.
Adding and editing agents
Section titled “Adding and editing agents”Click + Agent in the header to open the agent creation wizard. You can set:
- Name (must match
^[a-z0-9-]+$) - Description
- Model (
sonnet,opus, or leave blank for default) - Tools (comma-separated from the valid tool set)
- Body (the system prompt text)
- Color swatch (used for the liveness dot tint)
- Emoji avatar (a single character; used in the Agent Team graph and the agent’s avatar)
Click any agent in the sidebar to open their profile panel, then click Edit to modify them. The editor includes the same emoji picker.
Sidebar width
Section titled “Sidebar width”On desktop the sidebar width is draggable. The width persists across page loads.
On tablet the sidebar is collapsible via a hamburger toggle button. On mobile it becomes a dedicated tab in the bottom tab bar.
Hiding the sidebar
Section titled “Hiding the sidebar”To hide the sidebar entirely, go to Settings → Visibility and toggle Agent Sidebar off. You can re-enable it at any time. This does not stop Dispatch from tracking agent liveness. It only hides the panel.
Persona matching
Section titled “Persona matching”Persona matching throughout the dashboard is case-insensitive. An agent defined as Staff-Engineer will match sessions and epics that reference staff-engineer or STAFF-ENGINEER.
Agent Team graph
Section titled “Agent Team graph”Click the Team button in the top bar to open the full-screen Agent Team graph, a tiered, physics-based layout of all known agents. Nodes are arranged into horizontal tiers by role: Board at the top, then CEO/CTO, then architects and staff, then specialists. Within each tier, nodes repel each other and spring toward their row; you can drag any node to reposition it and the simulation adjusts around it.
Reading the graph
Section titled “Reading the graph”Each node shows live status at a glance:
| Indicator | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Node size | Larger = more sessions observed |
| Green pill (bottom-right) | Number of in-progress tasks right now |
| Cost chip (top-left) | Cumulative session cost: green below $0.10 (10¢), amber $0.10–$1.00, red above $1.00 |
| Amber pulsing ring | Agent is waiting for your approval; the timer shows how long |
| Edge color | Shifts toward red as the source agent’s error rate rises |
| Particle bolt | Real-time spawn event: an agent just launched a sub-agent |
Interactions
Section titled “Interactions”- Scroll to zoom in/out
- Drag background to pan
- Drag a node to reposition it (position is remembered)
- Click a node to open its profile panel
- Lock / Free toggle (top-right of graph): when locked, nodes spring back to your last manually set positions; when free, nodes float without snapping