Watching & commenting

On this page

What viewers see
Send a message to the agent
Read-only states
Watch from the terminal
If it doesn't work
Related

Watch a session live in the browser or the terminal, and send messages to the agent while it runs. You need read access to the session (see Sharing & visibility); sending messages needs comment access and a signed-in account.

What viewers see#

The session page shows the session as a feed of rows, newest at the bottom:

Prompts: what the person running the agent typed.
Replies: the agent's answers, in full.
Tool calls: the command or tool the agent ran, and its output.
File changes: the file path and a diff, with added and removed line counts.
Viewer messages: messages people sent, with who sent them.
Permission requests: a Permission requested bar when the agent is waiting for approval (see Approvals).

How much structure you get depends on the agent. Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity, Gemini CLI 0.26+ and ACP agents produce all of the rows above. Ollama and other terminal agents produce their terminal output, one row per line. The full table is in Agents.

People who open the page late see everything from the start, then the new rows as they arrive. When the session ends, the page becomes a replay of the full event log at the same link.

If you are not the owner, local details are hidden from what you see: home-directory paths become ~, email addresses become [email], and *.local hostnames become [host]. The owner sees the original text.

Send a message to the agent#

Open the session page while the session is live.
Type in Message this session… at the bottom of the page.
Press Enter (Shift-Enter adds a new line).

Your message appears in the feed for everyone watching and is delivered once to the agent. While you type, other viewers see a "… is typing" line under the message box. Typing status is not saved and is not part of the replay.

A message never interrupts the agent in the middle of a step. When and how it arrives depends on the agent:

Agent	How the message arrives
Claude Code	Injected into Claude's context at the next pause: a prompt, a tool call, the end of a turn, or while Claude is idle (through a per-session channel).
Codex (default, in tmux)	Typed into Codex's input box, so it arrives even while Codex is idle.
Codex with `LIVE_TMUX=0`	Codex fetches messages through a `poll_viewer_messages` tool when it finishes a step.
Codex with `LIVE_CODEX_APPSERVER=1`	Steers the running turn, or starts a new turn.
Antigravity	Every message in full, at the agent's next model step.
Gemini CLI 0.26+	At tool and turn boundaries only; a message sent while Gemini is idle waits for the next one.
ACP agents (`LIVE_ACP=1`)	Sent as the next turn, queued while a turn is running.
Ollama	Typed in as one line.
Other terminal agents	Shown to the person running the session as a yellow `[live]` line in their terminal. They decide whether to pass it on.

The operator of a terminal agent can opt in to typing messages into it with "type_comments": true in ~/.liveshortly/agents.json or LIVE_TYPE_COMMENTS=1. It is off by default because the Enter that submits the line could answer a yes/no prompt in the agent.

Read-only states#

The message box is replaced by a line explaining why you can't send:

You see	Why
Session ended — read only.	The agent has exited. The page is now a replay.
Watching as a guest. Sign in to comment	You are watching an open session without signing in.
Read only — you can watch but not comment.	You have viewer access only. The owner can give you comment access.
Waiting for @owner to approve · you can watch	A permission request is pending and only the owner can answer it on the web.

Watch from the terminal#

live ls --live      # sessions running now
live join <id>      # watch and send messages
live watch <id>     # watch only

<id> is the 8-character handle shown by live ls, a full session id, or a pasted session link. live join prints the last 20 turns, then streams new ones:

 › Rohit Sehgal · you 08:31:32
   append a line 'v2 tui' to README.md, then run wc -l

 ▸ Bash  08:31:35
   git status --short
   ⎿ ?? README.md

 ◆ claude-opus-5 · agent 08:33:17
   Status: `?? README.md` (untracked). Line `v2 tui` appended.

[4m · 2◉] ❯

The prompt at the bottom shows the session's uptime and how many people are watching. While the agent works it shows a spinner (⠹ Claude is working…). Anything you type goes to the agent, the same as the web message box. ↑/↓ recall what you sent, Ctrl-U clears the line, Ctrl-C leaves. Piping works too: echo "ship it" | live join <id>.

Use --full for the whole history or -n <count> for a set number of turns.

While joined, these slash commands work: /allow, /deny, /always, /info, /who, /tail, /url, /fork, /stop, /quit. /help lists them.

If it doesn't work#