Workspaces and canvases
The sidebar holds your projects. This page shows how workspaces and canvases fit together, and why your agents keep running when you close Cuewire.
Figure: The sidebar. 1 a workspace, 2 the + that adds a canvas, 3 the open canvas, 4 + Add project, 5 + Remote project (SSH or WSL).
Workspaces
A workspace is one project folder. Every agent in the workspace starts in that folder, or in a layer’s copy of it.
To add a workspace:
- Click + Add project at the bottom of the sidebar.
- Choose your project’s folder and click Use this folder.
The new workspace is named after the folder. It has one canvas, which opens at once.
The first time Cuewire opens, it makes a workspace called Home for your user folder.
To work on another machine, click + Remote project (SSH or WSL) instead. See Remote projects.
In the sidebar:
- Click a workspace to fold or unfold it.
- Double-click a workspace to rename it. Press
Enterto save the name, orEscto keep the old one. - Drag a workspace up or down to change the order.
Canvases
A canvas is one surface of nodes. A workspace can hold several canvases, for example one per feature. All canvases of a workspace work in the same project folder.
- Click the + on a workspace’s row to add a canvas. It is called Canvas 2, Canvas 3 and so on, and it opens at once.
- Click a canvas to open it. The open canvas is highlighted.
- Double-click a canvas to rename it.
- Drag a canvas to change its place in its workspace. A canvas can’t move to another workspace.
Cuewire shows one canvas at a time. The agents on your other canvases keep running. The Needs you list and the notifications cover the canvas that is open.
Cuewire saves your canvases by itself, as you work. You never need to save them.
Note
A name can have up to 64 characters.
Agents keep running when you close Cuewire
Figure: The Cuewire window only shows your terminals. The background service runs them, so closing the window stops nothing.
The Cuewire window does not own your terminals. A
background service, cuewired, runs them.
Cuewire starts it for you, and it keeps going on its own.
So you can close Cuewire at any time:
- Close the window, or press
Ctrl+Q(Cmd+Qon a Mac). Your agents keep working. - Agents go on handing tasks to each other while the window is closed.
- Open Cuewire again. Every terminal reconnects, with its screen as the agent left it.
If you were away for five minutes or more, a While you were away card sums up what each agent did meanwhile. See Know when an agent needs you.
The background service keeps the last 4 MiB of each terminal’s output. If an agent printed more while you were away, scrolling back shows History lost where the kept output starts.
Note
Restarting your computer stops the background service and every terminal in it. When you open Cuewire again, it starts each terminal again in its folder. Agents that can resume pick up their last conversation.
When the background service updates
After you install a new version of Cuewire, the background service may still run the old one. When terminals are running, the sidebar shows Update ready · restart 2 terminals. Nothing restarts until you choose. See Update Cuewire.
Figure: Cuewire asks before it restarts your terminals for an update.
Where your workspaces are kept
Your workspaces, canvases and notes are on your computer, in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Cuewire. Updating or
uninstalling Cuewire leaves that folder alone.