What your bot's avatar is telling you

What this does for you

Every bot is a small character: its shape is its body, it has a face, two stubby arms and two feet, it is one of eleven colours, and it can wear a party hat, headphones or a beanie. It acts out what the bot is doing, so a glance at the sidebar tells you which bot is working, which one is finished and which one is waiting for you. The pictures on this page are drawn by the same code the app uses, so they always match what you see.

Before you start

• You have a bot. Its shape, colour and what it wears are set in its avatar editor — see Make a bot, and set it up.
• A bot with an uploaded or generated picture shows that picture instead of the character, everywhere.

Steps

1. Read the bot's state from its avatar. In lists — the sidebar, search, notices — the avatar is small, so the big moves are cut down and two states add a badge in the top corner. The state is also said in words wherever the avatar appears, for screen readers and for anyone who prefers text.

   Avatar	State	What it means
   	Idle	Not running. It breathes and blinks, and nothing else.
   	Working	Running a job: it holds a stack of papers and looks down at them.
   	Replying	Writing its answer, with its mouth open. Shown only for the bot you have open; lists say Working.
   	Needs you	Waiting for you — an approval, a question or an account to connect. It waves, with an amber ! badge.
   	Done	Finished in the last few seconds: it grins, with a mint check badge. Then it goes back to Idle.
   	Failed	Its last run failed: it frowns. Open the bot to see why.
   	Paused	Paused on its usage limit: eyes half closed, arms down.
   	Asleep	Idle for a while at night, on the large avatar at the top of a bot's details. Lists show it as Idle.

2. Answer a bot that needs you in the approval card, not on the avatar. On the large avatar at the top of a bot's details, a bot that needs you walks to the front, knocks and holds up a sign with a ? on it. The sign never shows what the bot is asking: the request, its details and the Allow once, Always allow and Deny choices are in the approval card in the conversation, and nowhere else.

3. Play with it, if you like. On the large avatar, its eyes follow your pointer; click or tap to poke it, rub it to pet it, or drag it and let go. With the keyboard, move focus to it and press Space to poke it. Nothing you need is reachable only by playing. The Pause button beside it stops the movement.

4. Give it something to wear. Open the bot's avatar editor and pick a party hat, headphones, a beanie or nothing. What it wears is stored with the bot, so your teammates see it too.

   Party hat	Headphones	Beanie

5. Choose how lively your avatars are, for you alone. In Settings → General → Appearance:

   • Calm mode keeps the states and drops the extras: no idle bits, sweat, dizziness or confetti.
   • Avatar sounds plays little synthesised sounds when a bot knocks, giggles or finishes. It is off until you turn it on, and your notification sound setting silences it too.
   • Avatar motion is Follow your system setting, Reduced or Full. When your device asks for reduced motion, or you choose Reduced, every avatar holds still in its state's pose — a bot that needs you is already at the front holding its sign. Full keeps avatars moving even when your device asks for reduced motion.

6. If you are an organisation admin, you can turn lively avatars off for everyone. In a team organisation, open Organisation → Policies and turn off Lively bot avatars. Every member is then in calm mode with avatar sounds off, and their Appearance rows say so. An organisation can only turn these off: it can never turn motion or sound on for a member who chose otherwise. A personal organisation has no such switch.

A worked example

You start three bots on a Monday morning. A minute later the sidebar shows the support bot with an amber ! and a wave, the research bot holding its papers, and the reporting bot grinning with a check:

You open the support bot first: its approval card asks to send a reply, and you choose Allow once. The avatar goes back to working, and plays done when the run finishes.

What can go wrong

See also

• Make a bot, and set it up
• Your account and settings
• Approve an action