docs(using,reference): the fleet readout, the running-work bar, and chat:background

[edspencer]

Three things shipped in 0.67–0.69 and were described on no page at all. They are one story — what is running, and where do I look? — so they land together.

using/working-in-chats.md — the fleet readout (#787)

A new section at the top of the page, because the strip is above every route rather than being a Home feature (AppShell.tsx, mounted outside the <main> landmark). It documents the two fleet-wide counts and why they are the sidebar badges' own derivation rather than a second one; the per-turn channels (project, elapsed clock, six-segment context gauge with its 75%/90% hues); the bounded 3/2/1 channel layout and the +N that keeps it honest; the idle state that keeps its height rather than collapsing; that only the clocks animate; and that it costs nothing at rest — the running set rides the existing chat:active broadcasts, and the one fetch is armed only while a turn is in flight.

using/reading-claudes-work.mdx — the running-work bar (#807, closes #604)

### Running sub-agents stay in view said the bar above the composer lists sub-agents only. That has not been true since #807: RunningWork.tsx merges the transcript-derived sub-agent path with the server's live background-task registry, so background shells, Monitors and workflows appear too — the first time any of them has had liveness at all, rather than a static running chip that meant "no completion notification was found in the transcript".

The section is rewritten and renamed What is still running stays in view, covering both sources and why they differ, the no-double-render rule, the specific-when-it-can-be heading, per-row content, the rows that are not tappable because Paddock cannot identify their card, and the skipTranscript omission. The :::note[Only the ones it can see] is narrowed rather than dropped — it is still true of the sub-agent rows and no longer true of the bar as a whole. ### Background work outlives the turn is folded in: the bar is now the live answer instead of an inference from the transcript.

One wart, stated plainly

#807 unlocked the composer during a background phase (the lock now reads the new chat:active.turnRunning rather than running), but the blockers #806 enumerates are unfixed: chat:send still resumes the session, herdctl's #403 collision guard defers that resume until the reaper reaps — up to a five-minute ceiling Paddock never overrides — and the turn is marked running before the deferred resume returns, so the indicator animates with nothing streaming and Stop waits on a job id that has not been minted. There is also no way to stop only background work. A :::caution says so and links the issue. Nothing on the page implies #806 is resolved.

reference/websocket.md — chat:background and turnRunning

chat:background is a member of ServerMessage (ws-protocol.ts) and was absent from the page. Added:

• a server→client row stating the REPLACE semantics explicitly — tasks is the complete set, an empty array means nothing is running, clients swap rather than pairing edges — plus the broadcast-and-replay-on-connect behaviour;
• the LiveBackgroundTaskWire payload block, and the per-process note (empty after a restart, which is correct because the fleet stops with waitForJobs: false);
• chat:background added to the seq row's no-seq list ("those last five", hub.broadcast);
• chat:active.turnRunning, which was also undocumented — a note explains why running and turnRunning answer different questions and what an older client should fall back to. This one is not in the audit spec; it surfaced while grounding the frame and belongs in the same story.

Checks

• cd website && npm install && npm run build → exit 0, 52 pages.
• Orphans/dangling: both []. No new pages, no renames, so no redirects: entry needed.
• Leak check: 46 legitimate 127.0.0.1 hits across website/src/content/docs/** + README.md, unchanged by this diff; nothing else in the diff.
• Docs-only: no changeset, no version bump.

Deliberately untouched: whats-new*.mdx, configuration/appearance.md, astro.config.mjs, the #805 regions, and every screenshot — the video on the rewritten section still shows the sub-agent-only bar in the pre-overhaul UI, and its caption now says so pending the media re-shoot.

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