The control bar
The small bar on the edge of your screen that keeps your agents in view.
The control bar is a small bar on the right edge of your screen, halfway down. It stays on top of other apps, so your agents stay in view while you work in another app. Point at the bar and the inbox opens beside it.
What the bar shows
From the top:
- The inbox. A tray icon. A red dot on it means at least one ask is waiting for you.
- The workspace. Its icon shows only when you have more than one workspace. Click it to see your workspaces and switch to another one.
- A line, then one mark for each task in the workspace, workers included. They’re in the same order as the window’s sidebar. Each mark is the task’s state icon, the same one the sidebar shows. A blue spinner means the task is working.
- Agents outside Zero, such as Claude Code in a terminal. When one asks you something, it shows as a coloured dot after the tasks.
The task states:
| Icon colour | State | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Blue hand | Needs you | The task, or one of its workers, asked you something. |
| Orange triangle | In trouble | The task failed, got stuck or ran out of usage. |
| Red minus | Blocked | The task can’t go on until something outside you and the agent changes, such as an outage. |
| Blue spinner | Working | The task is working. |
| Teal box | Over to you | The task is done, and there’s a step left for you. |
| Indigo speech bubble | Replied | The task answered you. It turns grey once you’ve read it. |
| Grey hourglass | Waiting | The task is waiting on someone else, such as a review. |
| Purple badge | Done | Nothing is left to do. |
Open the inbox from the bar
- Point at the inbox icon or at a task’s mark. The inbox opens beside the bar and shows the asks, or that task. A task’s view shows its latest answer, with Open task to open it in Zero’s window.
- Click to keep the inbox open. To close it, click the same icon or mark again, or press Esc.
- Click a task’s mark. When the task has asked you something, its asks open in the inbox. Otherwise the task opens in Zero’s window.
While the inbox is open, 1, 2 and 3 pick an answer. See The inbox and asks.
Change the order
Drag a mark up or down the bar. The window’s sidebar takes the same order.
Use a mark’s menu
Right-click a task’s mark for its menu, beside the bar:
| Item | What it does |
|---|---|
| Open | Opens the task in Zero’s window. |
| Pause / Resume | Puts the task and its workers on hold, or takes them off hold. |
| Move to Later | Puts the whole task in Later. See Later, scratchpads and loops. |
| Archive… | Opens the task and asks you to confirm archiving it. See Tasks and workers. |
Right-click the mark of an agent outside Zero:
- Open in Terminal shows the terminal the agent runs in, when Zero started that terminal.
- Remove closes the agent in the inbox. Its open asks expire, and a Closed note stays in its history.
- Remove and stop does the same and also stops the agent. It shows in place of Remove when Zero can stop the agent.
Use the bar’s menu
Right-click the bar for:
- Open Log: opens
~/.zero/asks.jsonl, the file where Zero records every ask and answer. - Settings…: opens Zero’s settings.
- Quit Zero: quits the app.
Settings for the bar
These are in Settings › Control bar. Open Settings with ⌘ , or the gear at the foot of the window’s left rail.
| Setting | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Follow the active screen | Settings › Control bar › Placement | On: the bar moves to the screen you’re using. Off: it stays on the screen where it first appeared. |
| Bar in the window | Settings › Control bar › Placement | Puts the bar in Zero’s window, not on the screen’s edge: When it fills the screen, Always or Never. When it fills the screen is the default. |
| Agents in the bar | Settings › Control bar › Agents in the bar | The agents outside Zero that the bar shows. Rename or remove one, or drag them into a new order. A removed agent comes back when it next asks you something. |
The Talk hotkey opens the inbox and starts dictation, so you can answer by speaking. It’s ⌥ Space unless you change it in Settings › General › Zero › Talk hotkey.