Catch-up
When a session finishes a turn, Switchboard puts a short briefing over the conversation: what you asked, what Claude did, what it skipped, and the one thing it needs from you next. It comes with the signals you would otherwise look up yourself: did the tests pass, how much changed, and did Claude stay inside what you asked for.
When it shows
Section titled “When it shows”A session gets a catch-up when Claude finishes a turn, or stops with an error. Your next message clears it, and so does Claude going back to work. A session that is working has no catch-up.
A session that waits for a permission, a question or a plan to approve has none either: the card above the message box asks, as always. Its Why? button tells you why Claude asks. See Permissions.
The banner shows when there is something to decide: the session finished and you haven’t read it, or it stopped with an error. Once you’ve read a session, the catch-up folds into one line at the top, so it is one key away and never in the way.
Opening a session with a catch-up doesn’t mark it as read by itself. Mark as read, or anything that ends what it needs, does. A catch-up made while you were looking at the session (you watched it finish) is no news, so that session is read as usual.
What the banner says
Section titled “What the banner says”- The first line: the state (Finished in blue, or Finished with errors in red), your ask, how long it takes to look it over (“~2 min to review”), the main action and Details.
- Your ask is the prompt that started this piece of work. When your last message only answered Claude (“yes, go on”), it is the one before.
- The second line: the one thing it needs from you, in its colour (commit in green, reply in red, review in orange, or nothing), why, and the chips.
- The chips: the tests (14 tests passed, 2 of 9 tests fail or No tests run), the changes (+120 −40 · 6 files), files outside what you asked for, and whether Claude followed its plan.
Details (Space) opens the rest: What it did and Skipped or not finished, a few plain lines each, and the other actions.
What it needs from you
Section titled “What it needs from you”| It needs | When | Main action |
|---|---|---|
| Commit | It finished cleanly and changed files. | Commit (C) |
| Reply | Tests fail, it stopped with an error, or it asked you something. | Reply (R) |
| Review | It changed files outside the plan, or outside what you asked for. | Review changes (D) |
| Nothing | It finished cleanly without changing files. | Archive (E) |
ReturnEnter always runs the main action.
The signals
Section titled “The signals”The signals come from what Claude ran and from git, never from a model:
- Tests: the last test command of the turn (
npm test,npm run check,vitest,jest,pytest,go test,cargo test,dotnet testand the like), and whether it passed. The counts show when the output has them. - Changes: what changed in the session’s checkout (or worktree) against the last commit, plus the new files Claude made.
- Outside the plan: with a plan, the files and folders it names; without one, the paths your prompt names. A file Claude changed outside those shows here. A file outside the project or worktree always does. When neither the plan nor your prompt names any paths, the chip doesn’t show.
- The plan: Followed the plan, or Deviated from the plan, only when the session had one.
The review time adds up the lines and files that changed, failing tests and files outside the plan.
The actions
Section titled “The actions”Each button shows its key. The keys work while the catch-up is on screen and you’re not typing in the message box or another field.
| Action | Key | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Review changes | D | Opens the Changes panel, or closes it (Hide changes). |
| Commit | C | Opens the Commit dialog. Once it went through, the banner says Committed and offers Archive. |
| Reply | R | Puts you in the message box, which says “Reply to Claude about …”. |
| Mark as read | U | Marks the session read. The focus limit’s count drops right away. |
| Archive | E | Archives the session and opens the next one in the sidebar’s order. |
Escape closes one thing at a time: the message box you went to reply in, then the Changes panel, then Details, then it folds the banner. In the folded line, Show catch-up (Space) opens it again.
Quickest to unblock
Section titled “Quickest to unblock”The sidebar can sort sessions by what takes least to unblock. Choose Quickest to unblock at the top of the sidebar, next to Recent. Switchboard remembers your choice.
- Needs review · quickest first: sessions that wait for you, then finished ones you haven’t read, each by how long they take to review. Failing tests come last among equal times.
- Read: sessions you’ve looked at.
- Still working: sessions Claude is working on.
The Queue and Pinned only show in Recent. In both orders, a session with a catch-up says how long it takes on its second line (“acme-store · ~2 min to review”, or “needs you · ~1 min”), and a warning shows when Claude changed files outside the plan. In the minimal rail, the warning is a small badge on the icon.
Command, Shift, UControl, Shift, U goes to the next session that needs you in this order, whichever order the sidebar shows, and wraps around.
Settings
Section titled “Settings”In Settings, under Conversation, Catch-up, Write catch-up summaries with Haiku turns the catch-up on and off. It is on by default.
Off, no banner shows and Haiku is never called. You can still ask for one: run Catch up on this session from the command palette, and its lines come from the tool calls (“Edited 6 files”, “Ran npm run check”).
What Haiku sees
Section titled “What Haiku sees”Haiku gets your prompt, Claude’s last reply, a list of the tool calls (the tool, the file or command, and how it ended), the signals and the plan. It never sees what is in your files, a diff or your memory. Haiku has a few seconds; if it doesn’t answer in time, the banner is written without it: What it did starts with the opening sentence and the bold headings of Claude’s last reply, followed by the tool calls (“Edited 6 files”, “Ran npm run check”).
Each summary uses a few thousand Haiku tokens on the session’s Claude profile, so it counts toward that plan. In Usage, they show as their own row, Catch-up summaries. The answers to Why? on a permission count there too.