# The Dashboard

The dashboard is your control centre. When your AI company is running, this is the page you'll return to most — it tells you, at a glance, whether everything is moving forward or whether something needs your attention.

Think of it like the cockpit instruments on a plane. You don't need to read every dial every second, but you do want a clear signal when something is off. The dashboard gives you that signal.

![The Paperclip dashboard showing the current overview cards, charts, recent activity, and recent tasks](../../user-guides/screenshots/light/dashboard/dashboard-overview.png)

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## Agents Section

At the top of the dashboard, Paperclip shows your live agent activity and a set of overview cards. This is the quickest way to tell whether work is moving.

![Agent Status panel showing counts by state: active, running, error, and paused](../../user-guides/screenshots/light/dashboard/agent-status-panel.png)

Here's what each state means:

| State | What it means |
|-------|---------------|
| **Active** | The agent is enabled and ready to work. Idle agents are counted here. |
| **Running** | The agent is currently in the middle of a heartbeat — it's working right now. |
| **Error** | The agent's last heartbeat failed. It is not working and hasn't stopped gracefully. |
| **Paused** | The agent has been deliberately stopped — either by you, or automatically because it hit its budget limit. |

> **Warning:** Any agent showing "error" needs attention. The error won't fix itself. Click through to the agent's detail page and open its **Runs** tab to see the transcript of what went wrong — then fix the underlying issue (usually an API key problem, a budget running out, or a misconfigured adapter).

The most common healthy pattern early on: one agent **running** while the others stay **active**. If you see multiple agents in error or paused unexpectedly, that's worth investigating before leaving things to run.

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## Overview Cards

The four cards across the top summarize the company at a glance:

![Task Breakdown panel showing task counts by status: backlog, todo, in_progress, in_review, done, blocked](../../user-guides/screenshots/light/dashboard/task-breakdown-panel.png)

- **Agents Enabled** — how many agents are available to work, plus how many are currently running, paused, or in error.
- **Tasks In Progress** — how many issues are actively being worked, plus how many remain open or blocked.
- **Month Spend** — how much the company has spent this month against the current company budget.
- **Pending Approvals** — how many approvals are waiting on you, including budget-related approvals when they exist.

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## Recent Activity Feed

The Activity feed at the bottom (or side, depending on your screen size) of the dashboard shows the most recent events across your whole company — task status changes, comments, approvals, agent state changes, and budget events.

![Recent Activity feed showing the latest events with timestamps, actors, and descriptions](../../user-guides/screenshots/light/dashboard/activity-feed.png)

This feed isn't meant for deep investigation — it's a pulse check. Scan it after a few hours away and you'll quickly understand what's been happening. For detailed investigation, the full Activity page is a dedicated screen (covered in the [Activity Log guide](./activity-log.md)).

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## Reading the Dashboard at a Glance

Once your company has been running for a few days, checking the dashboard takes about 30 seconds. Here's how to read it quickly:

| Signal | Healthy | Needs attention |
|--------|---------|-----------------|
| Agents | Mostly active or running | Any in `error` or unexpectedly paused |
| Tasks in progress | Work is moving | Nothing in progress for hours, or too many blocked issues |
| Month spend | Climbing predictably | Sudden jump or active budget incidents |
| Approvals | Queue manageable | Pending approvals piling up |
| Recent activity | Steady, understandable motion | Long stretches of silence or repeated failures |

The dashboard refreshes in real time — you don't need to reload the page. If you're actively watching a heartbeat in progress, you'll see the running state appear and then resolve within a few minutes.

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You now know how to read your company's health at a glance. The next guide covers tasks in depth — how to create them manually, track progress, and give feedback to agents.

[Managing Tasks →](./issues.md)