Answer your agents — Kanbell Docs

A terminal never tells you that an agent waits for you. Kanbell does. It tracks Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI sessions, shows their state, sends a notification when one needs you and lets you answer some questions from the menu bar.

Read the session states

Every session shows a dot and a label:

Working: the agent is running.
Needs your answer: the agent asks a question or a permission. This is the one not to miss.
Finished · to review: the agent finished its turn and you have not looked at it yet. It clears when you select the tab.
Your turn: the agent is idle and you have already seen it.
Finished: the session has ended.

Set up notifications

Kanbell sends one system notification per session that needs you, never for the session you are looking at. A badge shows on the Dock and on the menu bar icon. Notifications are for agents only, never for shells.

Open Settings (⌘,, Linux: Ctrl+,) › Notifications.
Turn on Notifications.
Turn on Also when an agent finishes its turn if you want to know when a turn ends.
Turn on Sound if you want one.
Turn on Open the panel when an agent needs your answer. The panel opens without taking your keyboard focus.

Click the Kanbell icon in the menu bar. The panel lists the sessions that have a question, ask for a permission, wait in their terminal, or finished their turn.

Claude Code questions

You can answer Claude Code questions (AskUserQuestion) in the panel with Claude Code 2.1.293 or newer. These forms work:

one single-choice question;
one single-choice question with option previews;
2 to 4 single-choice questions without previews;
one multi-select question without previews.

Pick your answer, then click Send. For anything else the panel says "This question has to be answered in the Terminal." Click Open to go there.

Permissions

The panel shows the full command the agent wants to run. You cannot approve it from the panel. Click Open and answer in the terminal.

Finished turns

Type one line in Reply to {title} to send the agent its next message. This only shows when the agent is idle.
Or click Seen to clear it from the list.

Jump to the next session that needs you

Press ⌘⇧J (Linux: Ctrl+Shift+J). Kanbell goes first to the sessions that wait for an answer, then to the finished ones you have not seen.

Good to know

Codex and Gemini CLI questions are answered in the terminal, not in the panel.
Codex: trust Kanbell's hooks once with /hooks. Trust only the "session flags" ones, never "Trust all".
Gemini CLI: the folder must be trusted in Gemini CLI, and hooks must not be disabled.
Kanbell injects its hooks per session. It does not write to ~/.claude, ~/.codex or ~/.gemini.
On Linux the panel lives in the system tray. The icon only shows if your desktop has a tray: Ubuntu does, plain GNOME needs the AppIndicator extension. Without a tray, closing the last window quits Kanbell (it asks first if agents run).