notifications & attention

The point of the sidebar is that you do not have to watch it. Four things carry “something needs you” out to where you are.

Banners

A session that blocks raises a macOS notification. A permission prompt carries Approve and Deny, so you can unblock a session without switching to it — answering brings Fleet forward and focuses that session first, so you see what you just agreed to.

A question or a finished plan gets a banner with no buttons. Return on a plan means “yes, and use auto mode”, which is more than a one-tool Approve should promise.

Fleet stays quiet for a session you are already looking at, and only then — if Fleet is in the background, the banner comes through.

The Dock

The badge counts every session waiting on you except the one on screen, “your turn” included. The bounce is narrower and fires once, for a permission prompt, a question, a finished plan or a failed turn — the things that want you now rather than the ordinary end of a turn.

The menu-bar extra

A bell with a count, and a menu listing the sessions needing you, most pressing first, and then the ones that have stalled. Each is named with its status and, where there is one, what it is about. Clicking one opens Fleet on that session, and Next Session Needing You is there too. Triage without focusing the window.

The sidebar itself

Float sessions needing you to the top, under Settings → Sidebar, sorts each group so the sessions waiting on you come first, the most pressing at the top: a failed turn, then a permission prompt, question or plan, then a finished turn, and within each kind the one that has waited longest. ⌘⇧J walks every waiting session in the same ranking, across groups and whether or not the setting is on, so the thing you want is both at the top and one keystroke away.

By default, a waiting row also shows how long it has waited.

Turning it down

Under Settings → Notifications, permission prompts, your turn and stalled sessions each have their own switch, so you can be told about prompts and stay quiet when a turn ends. A finished plan follows the permission-prompt switch and a question follows the your-turn one. Stalls are off by default. Sounds and the Dock bounce switch separately. API errors and expired logins have their own toggle, on by default — silencing routine prompts should not silence a session that died.

Each kind of notification also picks its own sound — Permission prompts, Your turn, Stalled session and Errors, from the sounds macOS ships, with a preview button beside each. The terminal bell has its own picker under Settings → Terminal. Running fifteen sessions you are listening rather than watching, so which sound fires is most of the signal.

Mute Notifications on a row’s right-click menu silences one noisy session without touching the global rules. A muted row shows a struck-through bell.

If banners are not arriving at all, Settings → Notifications says so above the switches, and Troubleshooting has the two causes.