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 while you are at the end of the session.

Scroll up and the newest lines stop following. When new text arrives, Hyground shows New messages above the message box. Click it to go back to the end.

The newest lines also do not stay in view while you rate a reply. See Rate a reply.

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 or close it.

The header counts the work of that step, for example 4 tool calls · 2 skills used. A skill the agent ran counts as a skill, not as a tool call.

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.

An open button reads Hide command, Hide response, or Hide content. Click it to close what it opened.

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.

What is a sub-agent?

Your administrator can let the agent use sub-agents. A sub-agent works on one part of your question. The Tools panel then holds one card per sub-agent, under the rows.

The agent replies first while its sub-agents keep working. A new reply with their results then starts on its own. You can send messages while sub-agents work.

Each card has a title, such as Sub-agent 1 or Sub-agent 2. A tag beside the title reads Running, Finished, Failed, or Interrupted. The panel header counts the sub-agents by tag, for example 1 of 2 sub-agents running · 1 sub-agent finished.

A card starts closed. Click its title to open it. The open card shows the task of the sub-agent.

A finished or failed card also shows a Report when you open it. The Report of a finished sub-agent holds what it found. The Report of a failed sub-agent holds an error message. An interrupted card has no Report.

A running card has a Cancel button. Click it to stop that sub-agent only. Its tag then changes to Interrupted. To stop all sub-agents at once, see Stop the agent's reply.

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.

What if a reply fails?

A reply can fail before the agent finishes it. Hyground then writes an entry into the session. The entry stands where the reply stopped.

The entry is titled This request failed. It carries a warning triangle and the text of the failure. Under that text it shows Error code: with a code, when Hyground has one.

The entry stays in the session. Every user of a shared session sees it. See Who can see a session?.

You still find the entry after you reload the page. It disappears only when the agent answered you after the failure. You then read that answer in its place.

Send your next message to continue in the same session. Tell your administrator the error code if the same message keeps failing.

Some failures do not become an entry. Hyground shows a block titled Unable to process your message for those. The block disappears when you reload the page.

A reply that you stop yourself is not a failure. Hyground writes no entry for it. See Stop the agent's 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.

Stopping the reply also stops every running sub-agent in the session. Their tags change to Interrupted. No new reply with sub-agent results follows.

While sub-agents run and the agent is not replying, a second square button shows beside the send button. Its tooltip also reads Stop. Click it to stop every running sub-agent in the session. Their tags change to Interrupted, and no new reply follows. Escape does not stop them.

Any user in a shared session can stop a reply or its sub-agents. See Who can see a session?.

Queue a message

If you type while the agent replies, a button with the tooltip Add to queue appears beside the square Stop button. 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.