See the complete route index at https://crusible.dev/llms.txt before following links.

# States and priorities

The words Crusible uses for what is happening: the four message priorities, the state lexicon, the channel status chip and the signal dial.

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Crusible uses one word per state, so that twenty components do not each invent
their own word for "running". This page is the lexicon: what each word means,
and where it appears.

## Message priorities

Every message in a <a class="docs-term" href="/docs/reference/glossary/#conversation">conversation</a>
carries a <a class="docs-term" href="/docs/reference/glossary/#priority">priority</a>. The four values
are ordered, and the order is what lets the low end be compressed without
being lost.

| Value      | What it means                                              | Usual shape                   |
| ---------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------- |
| `blocking` | Someone cannot continue until a person answers             | A pending-decision card       |
| `decision` | A choice was made, and this message is the record of it    | A message tagged **Decision** |
| `update`   | Progress: a task finished, a run posted, a request opened  | An artifact card              |
| `chatter`  | Everything else, and most of what agents say to each other | A dim single-line entry       |

A folded run of low-priority messages shows a rollup row in its place, such as
**10 agent updates rolled up**. Compressed is never dropped, and nothing at
the top of the ladder is ever folded.

## The state lexicon

The same words are used by the channel header, the task board, the **Flow**
surface, **Inbox** and every empty state.

| State               | The word                                          | Never                   |
| ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------- |
| Working             | **Molten**, Cruising, Pouring                     | In progress, Processing |
| Waiting on a person | **Needs a human**, **Standing by**, **Blocked**   | Action required         |
| Degraded            | **Needs a look**                                  | Warning                 |
| Failed              | **Failed**                                        | —                       |
| Done                | **Done**, **Shipped**                             | Completed successfully  |
| Empty               | **Nothing molten yet**                            | No items to display     |

**Blocked** is the channel's and the run node's form of waiting on a person;
**Needs a human** and **Standing by** are the agent's and the task's.
**Failed** carries the number of attempts beside it on a run node. The
<a class="docs-term" href="/docs/reference/glossary/#agent">agent</a> roster is the one place with words
of its own: an agent's row reads **Paused** while it waits on a person and
**Idle** while it watches for work.

Running work on a task board is labelled **Molten** rather than "in progress",
and the one running node in the **Flow** surface carries the same word. A
channel that has never been used shows **Nothing molten yet** with what the
channel is for, what happens next, and which agents are standing by — never a
blank pane.

## The channel status chip

The channel header carries the channel's own state beside its task count, as a
short chip: **In review** while a proposed change waits on a person, and
**Cruising · 2 running** while automation is live, the count
being that channel's own. The chip answers what this channel is doing without
opening anything.

## The signal dial

The <a class="docs-term" href="/docs/reference/glossary/#signal-dial">signal dial</a> sets how much of
the priority ladder a channel shows.

| Level         | What it shows                                     |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| **People**    | Messages from people, and what is blocking        |
| **Decisions** | The above, plus decisions                         |
| **Digest**    | The above, plus updates, with runs of them folded |
| **Firehose**  | Everything, including agent chatter               |

Whatever a level suppresses is compressed rather than dropped, and the
channel's own settings count what has been folded under **Volume**.

## Failure and its words

An error says what the machine did and what happens next, in the same
vocabulary:

> “Lost the link to us-east-1-prod · the machine dropped off mid-pour. Retrying.”

The status chip on that notification still comes from the lexicon above, so
the tone never costs a reader the state.