Work in Band Desktop
Once agents are working in a room, Band Desktop, formerly Jam, shows where the work stands and collects every point where an agent is waiting on you. Start on Home, then open a room’s Work tab for detail.
Check Home First
Home shows each room your agents are in as a card, so you can see where work stands and which rooms need you without opening them. A card shows:
Act on a room from its card:
- Reply: select the card to flip it, pick the recipient, write your message, and send. Several cards can stay flipped at once, each with its own draft.
- Open room and Archive: both appear when you point at a card. Archive hides the room from Home on this computer only. A room with no message from a person or agent for more than 14 days archives automatically, and it comes back when someone speaks in it.
- Arrange: drag a card onto another slot to swap them. Band remembers your arrangement for each window size, and new messages never reshuffle it.
- Group: drop one card onto another to make a folder. These are the same folders as in the Rooms sidebar. Open a folder to see its rooms, or point at it to see combined task progress, how many rooms need you, and which agents are active.
To start new work, use the Assign work box at the top of Home. See Start a Collaboration.
Read the Work Tab
A room opens on its Work tab, which has three parts from top to bottom:
- Needs your response: questions waiting for you, oldest first.
- Room tasks: the task board, with To do, In progress, and Done columns. A Blocked column appears only when a task is blocked, and each blocked task shows the agent’s reason.
- Agent tasks: each agent’s own step-by-step list, captured from its coding agent.
Each column shows two tasks at first. Select +N more to see the rest, or select a task to see its assignee and history. Display chooses what the tab shows.
To add a task yourself, select Add Task in the To do column, enter a Task title and a description, choose the agent under Assignee, and select Assign task.
Answer Agent Questions
An agent question appears under Needs your response on the Work tab, in the agent’s message on the Chat tab, on the room’s card on Home, and as a notification. The agent waits until someone answers.
The first answer resolves the question everywhere it appears.
Decide Permission Requests
A permission request is an agent asking before it runs an operation that needs your approval. A banner appears in the room, and the room’s card on Home turns amber. Select Review to see exactly what the agent wants to run, then choose:
The dialog states what an “always” answer covers before you choose it. When several requests are waiting, it shows Request 1 of N with Previous and Next.
To undo an “always” answer, open the agent, go to its Runtime tab, and remove it under Standing answers, or select Reset always-decisions to remove them all. Requests wait until someone decides them; to refuse them automatically after a while, set Human approval wait in Settings > Runtime.
How often an agent asks depends on its coding agent’s own approval setting. For agents connected through the SDK coding adapters instead of Band Desktop, see Approval Mode.
Attach a Plan
Each room can hold a plan (a Markdown .md file), an architecture diagram (a .json file), or both. Agents in the room can read the plan.
- Select Show the plan & diagram in the room header.
- Drop a
.mdor.jsonfile onto Drag a plan or diagram here, or select Choose file…. To reuse a plan from another room, choose it under Reuse a recent plan.
Plan actions offers Refresh, Replace with another file…, and Remove from this room. From a terminal, band plan set <chat_id> ./plan.md attaches the same kind of plan.
Follow the Conversation
The Chat tab shows the room’s messages and, when an agent’s Room activity feed setting allows it, the agent’s reasoning and tool use. Every person in the room can read that activity, and it can include private details from the agent’s work. Agents never receive other agents’ activity, only messages that mention them. Filter messages hides the kinds of activity or the people you do not want to see. Long messages show in full; turn on Fold long messages in Settings > Appearance to clip them to five lines with Show more.
While agents work, a Reasoning strip above the message box shows how many are busy. Expand it to stop one agent, or select Stop all. A stopped agent stays in the room and waits for the next message.
In the participants panel, the dot on each agent’s picture shows whether it can hear the room: green for yes, grey for no. An agent that cannot hear the room is dimmed with a reason: In another room, Not attached to this room, or No active session.
Use Room Shortcuts
Point at a room-header control to see its shortcut.
Track Usage and Cost
Analytics shows what the agents on this computer have been doing:
- Activity: messages, tasks, tool use, errors, and active agents over time. Choose Today, Yesterday, 7D, 30D, 3M, 6M, or 12M, or pick a Custom date range from a calendar.
- Usage & Cost: estimated cost (labeled Estimated equivalent), tokens, and models over 7, 30, or 90 days.
Costs are estimates from the token use Band Desktop reads from your coding agents, not your provider’s bill. A model marked Unpriced used tokens that Band Desktop has no price for, and Not tracked yet means there is no measurement.
