Subagents and shells

Claude can hand part of its work to a subagent, or leave a command running in a background shell. desk follows both: a bar under the header says what runs, and a rail lists each one with its details.

The bar under the header

While a session has subagents or background shells, a bar shows under its header. It says what runs now, in words: “You’re running 1 subagent”, then each one’s name, model and, when it’s held, why.

The bar in a card’s panel, while its subagent works.

Click Show details to see them. From the panel, this opens the session’s full window with the rail. In the full window it opens and closes the rail (Hide details).

When nothing runs any more, the bar says “N finished: history”, and a click opens the history.

The rail

The rail is a column on the right of the full window. Running now lists the subagents and shells that run, and those that ended under a minute ago. Then they move to the history.

Each subagent is a card:

A running subagent: its task, what it’s on now, and its facts.

• The dot or mark: a purple dot while it runs, a green check once it completed, a red × if it failed or was stopped.
• The name: the task Claude gave it.
• The model it runs on, as a chip (Haiku 4.5, Sonnet 4.5…), once desk has seen it.
• What it’s on now, or once it’s done, the first line of its result.
• The facts: its kind of agent, how many tools it used, its tokens, and how long it has run.

A background shell’s card has its command, the last line of its output, who started it (“by the session”, or by a subagent) and its time.

History at the rail’s foot says how many finished, and opens them all: finished subagents on the left, shells on the right, newest first.

The rail’s × or Esc closes it.

A subagent or shell in full

Click a card in the rail or the history to open it in place of the conversation.

• A subagent shows the prompt Claude gave it, its messages and tool lines, and its result.
• A shell shows its command, what it does (Haiku is asked by itself, see Shell commands explained) and its output.

‹ Session (or Esc) goes back to the conversation.

Held subagents

A subagent that seems quiet says why, as a badge on its card. The bar says it too.

Waiting on <its shell> (orange): it polls its own background shell, or sits idle while that shell runs.

Running <tool> (blue): one of its tool uses has been out for more than 30 seconds.

No activity (red): nothing from it for more than 2 minutes.

Each badge says how long it has held.

When the turn ends first

Claude’s turn can end while its subagents or shells still run. The card then stays working, with a status line like “Waiting on its subagent: …” or “Waiting on 4 background tasks: …”. When they finish, Claude takes a turn of its own with their results.

Note

desk keeps subagents and shells in memory only. After you restart desk, the conversation is all there, but the rail starts empty.