Status icons

Every task state has its own shape, so you can tell states apart without color. The same shapes show in the task table, the jump palette, the pane tabs, the terminal header, the sidebar and the stage markers. Only a running task moves.

Task states

The table shows the icon at 10 px in a 16 px box. The sidebar shows it at 10 px next to each task, and at 8 px next to each shell under the open task.

Icon	Sidebar shell	State	Shape	What it means	What you do	Needs you
		Draft	Dashed ring	Created, not started.	Mark it ready, or start it.	No
		Ready	Ring	The stage waits to start: for its agent, a workspace, or the tasks it depends on.	Nothing. It starts when it can.	No
		Running	Full disk that blinks	An agent or a command works on the stage.	Nothing. Open the workspace to watch.	No
		Running, but quiet	Ring, lower half filled, in the “needs you” color	The task runs, but its agent has shown no sign of life for 10 minutes.	Open its terminal and check that the agent is not stuck.	Yes
		Needs input	Diamond	The agent asked a question or a permission, or ended its turn without natamux done.	Click Answer to open its terminal, then reply.	Yes
		In review	Rounded square	The stage is done and waits for your approval.	Read the changes, then Approve or Send back.	Yes
		Blocked	Two bars	You or Natamux paused the task.	Unblock it when it can go on.	Yes
		Failed	Triangle	The agent or a stage command failed.	Read the reason, fix it, then Retry.	Yes
		Done	Check	The task is finished.	Nothing.	No
		Cancelled	Dash	You stopped the task.	Nothing.	No
—		State not known yet	Grey ring with a dot	A shell runs an agent, but Natamux has no state for it yet: an agent you started by hand that has had no prompt yet, or one that ran when the daemon restarted.	Nothing. It changes at the agent’s next event.	No

Hollow shapes have not started, a full disk is alive, and a half disk is alive but silent. A task with stages shows the state of its current stage. When stages run side by side, the task shows running while any of them runs.

In the dashboard, hover an icon to see its state as text. Screen readers read the state name. See Tasks for how a task moves between states, and Needs you for where waiting tasks show up.

Stage markers

The Progress views show one marker per stage, with the same shapes.

Marker	Stage	What it means
	Done	The stage was approved or passed its checks.
	Now, running	The current stage. Its agent works; the inner disk blinks.
	Now, needs input	The current stage waits for your answer.
	Now, in review	The current stage waits for your approval.
	Now, blocked	The current stage is paused.
	Now, failed	The current stage failed.
	Not reached	The task has not got here yet.
	Skipped	The task went past this stage without running it.

The current stage is a tinted disk in a ring of its state color, with the state shape inside. The line into a running stage fills toward it every 2 seconds. Lines behind the work are green, and lines ahead are dashed.

Busy buttons and loading

Icon	Where	What it means
	In a button, in place of its icon	Natamux is doing what you clicked, such as Push. The label stays, and the button keeps its width.
Grey bars that fade in and out	Lists and panels	The content is loading. The bars have the size of the rows that come. They show only after 200 ms.

A row in the sidebar that starts to wait for you flashes once, so you notice it.

Motion

• Only what is alive moves: a running task blinks once every 2 seconds, a busy button turns, a loading list fades in and out. Everything else is still.
• All running tasks blink at the same moment, so a full board stays calm.
• The dashboard draws moving icons 8 times a second, which keeps CPU use low. The icons are made for that rate, so they do not stutter.
• With Reduce motion on in your system settings, nothing moves. A running task shows its still disk, a busy button shows three dots, and loading bars do not fade.
• When the dashboard window is not in front, nothing moves either. It saves power on a dashboard left open on a second screen.