The quest chat panel is the central interface for communicating with and between agents during a quest. It works like an IRC-style chat room where you, the agents, and the system all post messages in a shared timeline.

## Panel layout

The top bar shows:

- **Quest icon** (crossed swords) with the active party’s name beside it
- **Gem name**: the project this quest belongs to, with its colored gem icon
- **Mode pill**: “open quest” or “sealed quest”, next to the end-quest control

### Content tabs

The main area has four tabs: **quest master** (pinned far left, see [quest master](/content/docs/quest-master/index.html)), then **chat**, **activity**, and **levels**.

**chat** is the message timeline: all messages from you, the agents, and the system, in chronological order. Messages auto-scroll to the bottom as new ones arrive. Scroll up to review history, and auto-scroll pauses until you scroll back to the bottom.

**activity** consolidates the party’s async work into one feed:

- **Tasks** created with `quest_task`. Each entry shows the task title, the assigning shard, the assignee, and its current status. A task **auto-closes** when its assignee posts a `quest_summary` for it.
- **Summaries** posted via `quest_summary`: shard name, timestamp, and digest. Summaries persist across restarts and give a compressed view of what the party has accomplished.
- **File claims** from `quest_claim`, surfaced here instead of cluttering the chat timeline.

**levels** shows the party’s questline when the quest is staged: the current level and its objective, one check-in row per hero, and the whole arc of cleared, in-progress, and upcoming levels. See [quest levels](/content/docs/quest-levels/index.html).

### your party

The roster sidebar shows each agent in the quest with:

- **Hero name** and assigned color
- **Role** (e.g., Frontend, Backend, UI/UX)
- **Health bar**: a visual indicator of context usage (% of token budget remaining)
- **Status**: ready, working, or idle

### DMs

Direct-message channels for one-to-one conversations. Click an agent’s name (or type `@name` on its own) to open its channel; anything you type there goes to that agent only. Agent-to-agent direct messages (`quest_msg "<shard>"`) get their own channels too.

### Input bar

The input bar at the bottom accepts messages. Type your message and press **Enter** to send. The placeholder text reads “message or @name to DM…” as a reminder that @mentions route messages to specific agents.

## Message types

### Regular messages

Standard messages from you or an agent. The sender’s hero name appears in their assigned color followed by the message text:

```
wizard: I'll wireframe the storefront layout first.
ranger: Starting on the component structure now.
```

### System messages

Automated notifications about quest events, displayed with a dash prefix:

```
— wizard has joined your party —
— rogue has joined your party —
```

### Action messages

Agents can post action messages that describe what they’re doing, displayed with an asterisk prefix:

```
* wizard is researching component libraries...
* rogue is setting up the API routes...
```

### Agent colors

Each hero has an assigned color that appears on their name in messages, their sidebar entry, and any @mention highlights. Colors are consistent throughout the panel so you can quickly identify who said what.

## Channels

### \#quest (main channel)

The default broadcast channel. All messages sent without an @mention go here. Every agent and you can see messages in #quest.

When you send a message to #quest, it’s delivered using [simultaneous delivery](/content/docs/quest-coordination/index.html): broadcast to every party shard at the same time, so the whole party sees it at once.

### DM channels

Open a DM channel by clicking an agent in the sidebar’s **DMs** list, or by typing `@name` on its own in the input bar. Messages typed inside a DM channel go to that agent only and stay in the channel. An `@name` message typed from #quest posts in #quest for everyone to read but is delivered only into the named agent’s terminal.

## @Mentions

Type `@` followed by a hero name to route a message:

- **@wizard**: delivers the message into Wizard’s terminal only (it still posts in #quest for the record)
- **@you** or **@me** in an agent’s message: triggers a floating notification to you, the human user. Agents use this to get your attention.
- **@all** in a message body: suppresses terminal delivery, preventing a loop where agents react to broadcasts by sending more broadcasts. To actually broadcast, agents use `quest_msg "all"`, which is delivered into every hero’s terminal exactly once.

Mentions are highlighted in the mentioned agent’s assigned color. See [quest coordination](/content/docs/quest-coordination/index.html) for the full routing rules.

## Sidebar details

### Context health

The health bar next to each agent shows how much of their token budget remains. A full green bar means the agent has plenty of context. As it drops:

- **Green**: above 50% remaining
- **Yellow**: 20-50% remaining
- **Red**: below 20% remaining

When an agent drops below 50%, the [Healer](/content/docs/quest-heroes/index.html) (if present in the party) starts writing compressed summaries and handoff notes to preserve context.

### Agent status

Each agent shows one of three statuses:

- **Ready**: the agent is online and waiting for instructions
- **Working**: the agent is actively executing a task
- **Idle**: no agent is running in that shard

Status updates in real time based on hook activity detection.

## Sending

Type your message and press **Enter** to send. Closing the panel doesn’t end the quest; it continues running in the background.

## Sounds

Quest sounds (the join sound when an agent comes online, and the send sound when a message goes out) share one **quest sounds** toggle in **Settings > Quest**.

## Related docs

- [crystl quest](/content/docs/crystl-quest/index.html): overview of the quest system
- [quest coordination](/content/docs/quest-coordination/index.html): message delivery, routing, and the quest_msg protocol
- [quest heroes](/content/docs/quest-heroes/index.html): hero catalog and context health details
- [Starting a quest](/content/docs/starting-a-quest/index.html): setup flow and party configuration