Agents and status
Every session is a PTY. The agent catalog is data: one JSON manifest per CLI, describing how to spawn it, how to resume it, which keys approve or deny a prompt, and the screen rules that decide whether it is working, waiting, or done.
Zeus never installs an agent for you. Put the binary on PATH, sign in the
way that CLI expects, then launch it from Zeus.
What you can launch
The launcher, sidebar New Agent, ⌘N, ⌘T, and the command palette all
read the same readiness catalog. First-class entries (when the CLI is
installed) include:
Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Grok, OpenCode, Gemini, Aider, Amp, Copilot, and the rest of the manifests shipped in the Engine.
A missing binary is not a crash. The row stays visible with an install hint and, when the manifest has one, a setup URL.
⌘T always does something useful. If your saved default agent disappeared,
Zeus falls through to another installed first-class agent, then to a login
shell.
Status you can leave the room on
Zeus reads the grid, the title, progress, hooks, and process facts. It reduces them to a small vocabulary:
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Working | The agent is doing something. In the workflow tree the mark wears a spinner. |
| Needs input | It is blocked on you: a permission, a question, a confirm. Destructive prompts get a sharper color. |
| Done | It finished work you have not opened yet. |
| Idle | Quiet, and you have already seen it. |
| Hibernated | Frozen to save memory. Opening the session wakes it in place. |
| Ended | The process exited. Resume if the agent supports it. |
Claude Code and Codex have the richest rules (working, blocked-permission, blocked-question, idle, exited) plus resume. Other catalog agents get whatever their manifest knows. If Zeus cannot name a blocker it will not invent one. A lying spinner is worse than a quiet row.
⌘⇧J walks every session that needs input. Gentle status chimes (Settings →
General) are optional and stay quiet on mere token activity.
Resume
Closing Zeus does not end the process. Closing a session might, after a confirm if you left that setting on.
Agents that support resume can pick up a conversation after a clean exit or after you reopen a still-running PTY. Codex and Claude Code are the ones to trust here. Others may come back as a fresh CLI in the same folder.
Archiving (⌘⇧W) is for history, not resume.
Hosted vs a bare shell
A hosted agent is one Zeus launched from a manifest. Those sessions get Zeus MCP injected automatically (see Orchestration).
A plain terminal (⌥⌘T) is your login shell. It still has a sidebar
row and running/exited status. It does not get agent MCP, resume, or a
branded mark.
Marks in the tree
The workflow tree draws unbadged brand marks for Codex, Claude, Grok, OpenCode, and Cursor. Other kinds use a terminal glyph. Working sessions get a ring around the mark. Titles sit in a caption chip under the icon so the rails never run through the name.
Default agent
Settings → General → Default agent is what ⌘T and Quick Open launch.
Pick the CLI you reach for first. Everything else stays one ⌘N or ⌘K
away.