Live Activities

Follow each Host's agents on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, with counts of Blocked, Done, Working and Idle agents.

A Live Activity keeps one Host on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. It shows how many agents are Blocked, Done, Working and Idle, and a line for each agent, so you can check on them without opening Waycar.

Turn on Live Activities

Live Activities turn on with notifications. When Waycar asks, tap Turn On (or Continue, then allow notifications), and both are set up for every Host.

To change one Host:

1. Open Settings, then Notifications.
2. In the Host’s section, turn Live Activity on or off. It appears once Notifications is on for that Host.

If Live Activities are off for Waycar in iOS Settings, the Host’s section tells you to enable them there.

What it shows

• Lock Screen: a big status line such as “1 Blocked”, with the other counts beside it, then up to four agents with their status in words and colors. Each agent shows the first two rows of its Agent List Fields on one line, and a value repeated across them, such as a worktree’s branch name in both the Workspace and the tab, shows once. Pinned agents come first.
• Dynamic Island: a status symbol and count. Expand it to see agents.

When more agents qualify than fit, the Live Activity shows three of them and a +N more footer. The expanded Dynamic Island shows +N more too.

May be out of date means the Host hasn’t updated the Live Activity recently. Open Waycar with that Host connected to refresh it.

Counts read in attention order: Blocked, Done, Working, then Idle. Idle agents never start or keep a Live Activity open and don’t count in the Dynamic Island total. Shells never raise Live Activities.

Tap an agent’s row to open that agent. Tap anywhere else on the Live Activity to open the Console.

Does it work when Waycar is closed?

Yes, in two ways:

• Started while Waycar was open: it keeps updating in the background after you leave Waycar. Your Host sends each change, and the end, straight to it.
• Started by the Host: when an agent starts working, gets blocked, or finishes while Waycar is closed, your Host can start the Live Activity itself, with a brief “Agents active” alert. It shows the Host’s status as of that moment and is marked May be out of date after a while. Live updates resume the next time you open Waycar with that Host connected.

If you dismiss it, it stays away until that Host’s agents go quiet.

This needs the current Waycar plugin on your Host. Run the install command again to update it.

Why isn’t a Live Activity showing?

In Settings › Notifications, the Host’s section shows a Live Activity: line saying whether it is active or idle, and why. Idle with no working, blocked, or done agents is normal. The other reasons point to what to fix: the iOS setting, push registration, or the Waycar plugin. See Live Activities aren’t updating.

What stays private

Apple needs to read a few values to show a Live Activity: the status counts, the start, update or end event, and timing. Agent, Host and task details stay encrypted with your Host’s Notification Key. See Notifications.

herdr and tmux

Live Activities work on both Backends. On tmux they come through Waycar hooks.