Working with tasks
How tasks work, what statuses mean, and how to give your assistant what it needs.
What is a task?
A task is a unit of work your assistant handles on your behalf. It could be as simple as "remind me at 3pm" or as complex as "schedule a meeting with five external stakeholders, coordinate availability, and send a confirmation with the agenda."
Every task has a conversation attached — you can follow along, ask questions, or give more context at any point.
Task statuses
Each task card shows a status badge. You can browse tasks under Tasks, in the tabs Recurring, Planned, In Progress, Done, and Archive.
| Status | What's happening |
|---|---|
| In Progress | Your assistant is working on it, including work it has handed to background helpers |
| Chatting | A conversation your assistant is holding open, with nothing further to do yet |
| Message received | A message has come in and is being picked up |
| Scheduled | Will run at a future time |
| Waiting on you | Your assistant needs your answer or your approval before it can continue |
| Ready for review | The work is finished and only your word closes it |
| Waiting for reply | Waiting on someone else, such as a meeting request sent to an external party |
| Alarm set | Your assistant set itself a reminder and will pick the task back up when it fires |
| Paused | Held on your say-so; nothing runs until you resume it |
| Out of Credits | Held because the team has no credits left; it resumes on its own once credits are restored |
| Done | Finished |
| Error, Cancelled, Archived | Stopped, called off, or filed away |
| Handled by another assistant | Another assistant addressed on the same thread took it, so this one has nothing left to do |
When your assistant needs input
If your assistant hits something it can't decide on its own, the task moves to Waiting on you and you'll see the question in the task conversation. Reply directly in the conversation — your assistant will continue from where it left off.
If a message your assistant wrote is held for your review, the task waits on you and shows Needs approval until you choose Send or Discard on it in your inbox. Once you do, the task goes back to where your assistant left it.
Common reasons it stops to ask:
- Ambiguous instructions ("next week" when multiple options exist)
- Missing information (no calendar access to a required attendee)
- A decision that should be yours (which of two times is better?)
- An action waiting for your approval
Approving actions
For actions with real-world consequences — sending an email, booking a meeting, creating a calendar event — your assistant stages the action in a dispatch cart. Whether it stops for your approval, gives you a short confirmation window, or goes ahead on its own depends on your Autonomy settings. Emails sent as you are held for approval by default.
When a cart is waiting for you, you'll see:
- The exact email text, ready to send
- The exact meeting time, attendees, and title
- The exact recipients
You approve, edit, remove an item, or cancel. See the Dispatch cart guide for the full model.
Sharing a task
A task can be shared with the people you work with. Use the + button beside the avatars at the top of a task to add a teammate. You can search your team, pick someone from your contacts (which also invites them to your team), or type an email address to invite someone new. A person you've invited but who hasn't joined yet appears in a private "Holding a seat" list that only you can see, and you can release that seat at any time.
On a shared task, everyone sees the same conversation and activity, and each person's own assistant works alongside them. Each person is shown alongside their assistant, and you can remove someone from the task from their avatar card. In your task list, a task someone else shared with you is labeled with who shared it.
When a message on a shared task doesn't name anyone, one assistant is chosen to respond rather than all of them at once. Credits are charged to the person whose assistant does the work.