How the agent answers
This page explains what you see while the agent works on your message. It also explains why a good reply takes time. It shows how you stop a reply and how you queue your next message.
What do you see while the agent works?
Hyground shows Thinking... below the last message. When the agent writes its reasoning, that text replaces Thinking... and grows as the agent works. The newest lines stay in view.
The agent then adds a Tools panel, a piece of reply text, or both. It repeats this until it can answer you. Each part appears as soon as the agent finishes it.
What is in the Tools panel?
The Tools panel lists the tool calls the agent made in that step. It starts closed. Click the panel header to open it.
The panel shows one row per call. Most rows begin with the reason for the call on its own line. The tool name is on the line below. A row shows the values the agent passed unless it offers Show command or Show content instead.
Some rows carry extra buttons:
- Show command opens the command the agent ran.
- Show response opens the result the tool returned.
- Show content opens the content of a file the agent wrote.
The open panel also offers Expand all and Collapse all when a row has something to open. Click Expand all to open every Show command, Show content, and Show response in the panel at once.
How do you read the agent's reasoning?
The agent writes reasoning as it works. Hyground keeps that text out of the reply itself.
Click the brain icon below an agent message to read its reasoning. Its tooltip reads Show agent reasoning. Click the icon again to hide the text.
A row in the Tools panel can carry the same icon. It then shows the reasoning that led to that call.
The icon appears only where the agent wrote reasoning. A short reply often has none.
Why does a reply take minutes?
The agent answers from the live state of your systems. Every step costs one or more tool calls, and each call waits for a connected system.
A broad question needs many steps. A question about one resource needs few. The Tools panel shows you how much work the reply took.
You do not have to wait in the session. Open another session and come back. Hyground keeps writing the reply.
Stop the agent's reply
While the agent writes its reply, the send button shows a square. Its tooltip reads Stop. Click the square button to stop the reply.
Escape also stops the reply, if the cursor is in the message box. To continue, type your next message and press Enter.
Any user in a shared session can stop a reply. See Who can see a session?.
Queue a message
If you type while the agent replies, a second button appears beside the square button. Its tooltip reads Add to queue. It queues your message.
Enter does the same. Neither one stops the agent.
While the agent replies, the empty message box reads Queue a message…. The queued message waits at the end of the session. Its label reads Queued. Click the cross in the message to remove it.
Hyground sends the queued message only if you still view the session when the reply finishes. If you open another session first, the message stays queued.
If you stop the reply, Hyground does not send the queued message. The message waits until the next reply finishes while you view the session.