# Running several agents

> More than one agent at a time — sending cards to sessions, watching runs, and the board that tracks them.

Cydonia runs several coding agents at once, in one project or across several. One agent in one project is a session; the panes put several sessions on screen, and the boards hand them work.

## Starting more than one

⌘N talks to whichever agent the project last used, so it is the same agent
every time. ⌥⌘N starts a session on the next agent installed — that is how a
second one gets a turn while the first is still working.

Sessions run independently. A turn in one does not queue behind a turn in
another, and each reports its own progress.

## Sending cards to a session

▶ on a card, or on a column's heading, opens a menu of sessions to send it to: the session that last held the card, then the project's sessions most recently used, then New session.

- What is sent is a link to each card. A column sends its cards that are neither busy nor blocked, under the column's name.
- The session picked is written down on each card as the one that last held it, the way a session that made a card or tagged it busy is.
- The board stays up. A card spins an orb while an agent has it busy; clicking the orb follows the work into the transcript.

## Watching them

| What | Chord |
| --- | --- |
| Step between the panes on screen | ⌃⇥ and ⇧⌃⇥ |
| Close a tab in a space | ⌘W |
| Toggle the sidebar | ⌘B |

Split the window into panes and drag a session into each, or save the
arrangement as a space — one space can span projects. Each pane draws from
its own state, so moving the focus does not move what the others are showing.
See [Panes, tabs and spaces](https://cydonia.sh/docs/working/spaces.md).

## The board as the status of the work

A card's column says where the work is. On top of that, an agent tags a card busy through `board_set_card_busy` while it works on it, and can tag several cards in one write — as it can move several in one write through `board_move_card`. The convention the tools ask for: tag a card busy before starting on it and take the tag off when the turn is over, so a tag left behind never says an agent is on a card that nobody is.

A card that cannot go on until others are finished names them through `board_set_card_blockers`, and shows `blocked` until they are taken off it.

With a board per project, what is running — and what is stuck — is one screen rather than several transcripts.