Using mu
The plain-language board
A board that tells you in plain words how far the work is, written by a model chosen for speaking plainly.
Models keep getting better at the work and harder to follow: their progress reports read like notes for another machine. mu does not ask the working model to report. With the board on, a second model, chosen only because it speaks plainly, tells you what is going on, and Jev decides what is worth telling.
What the board shows
- Where things stand. What the agent is doing now, how many of the acceptance items are done, and what waits for you.
- A running account. A line for every step as it happens: which file changed, whether a check passed, which command ran. A string of file reads folds into one line, read 5 files.
- News, retold. Whenever the agent says something or finds something,
board.readasks the judge whether it is news or routine. Only news is retold on the spot by the plain-speaking model. - A summing up. When a run ends, its news is picked once more for a summary, the last line of the account, with the steps kept above it. So you see not only done, but what was done.
At the top, two numbers: how full the context is and the cache hit rate, the direct result of the context and cache decisions.
The board is for you only; it never enters the model's context. The working model keeps working in its own language.
Switching it on
The board is switched per project: /board on and /board off in a session, or the switch on the app's board tab. The first time, you pick the model that writes it; Claude Opus 4.6 is recommended, then Gemini 3.8 Flash. /board model changes it.
It is off for new projects unless you set features.board.defaultOn, because every update costs a model call.
How often it looks
The judge looks whenever the agent says something, after a check or a ticked acceptance item, every five tool calls, and whenever the agent stops, but not more often than every 20 seconds while it works. The board follows the permission mode, a running goal and sub-agents, so it says waiting for your permission or two sub-agents are working when that is the case.
| Option | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
features.board.language |
auto |
The language you write in, or zh / en |
features.board.everyTools |
5 |
Tool calls between two looks |
features.board.minIntervalMs |
20000 |
Shortest gap between two looks while it works |
features.board.model |
empty | The writing model, as provider/model; set here, nobody is asked |