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Answer a question or a permission request

An agent stops and waits for you in three ways: it asks permission to do something, it asks a question with answers to pick from, or it ends its turn with a question in words. Whichever it is, the agent and its project say Needs you until you answer.

Before you start

  • To answer away from the Mac, the iPhone or iPad app paired with it. See the tutorials.

Steps

  1. Find the agent that is waiting. Any of these takes you to it:
  2. On the Mac, a project with a dot beside it in the list; on its page, the agent under Needs you.
  3. On iPhone or iPad, the same, in the project list and on the project's page.
  4. A notification. It names the agent, the project and what is wanted; click or tap it to open the conversation with the question in front of you. You get one notification, on the device you used last: the Mac if you are at it, otherwise the iPhone or iPad you touched most recently. None comes if you are already reading that conversation.
  5. Answer the card in the conversation. It is where the agent asked: what came before the question is above it, and anything that came after it (more of the agent's work, a prompt waiting to be sent) is below it. Usually that is the end of the conversation, just above the prompt. It scrolls with the conversation. While it is out of sight, ↑ Question waiting or ↓ Question waiting above the prompt says which way it is, and takes you to it. When you follow the end of the conversation and new work pushes the card up, the conversation keeps following the end. When the agent asks about several things at once — several file edits, for example — each question stays as its own card, each where it was asked, until you answer it. Answering one leaves the others.
  6. Permission. The card names what the agent wants to do, such as the command it wants to run or the file it wants to change. The buttons are the agent's own choices, usually Yes, Yes, and don't ask again… (the rest of the button names what it will stop asking about, such as for swift test * commands) and No. On iPhone and iPad the card also shows the full command or change, and says, for example, Yes — telling your Mac while the answer goes through.
  7. A question with choices. Click or tap the answer. No thanks declines to answer; the agent carries on without one.
  8. Several questions at once. They come one to a page. Choosing an answer moves to the next page. Use Next to skip a question you want to leave, the back arrow to go back, and Submit on the last page. The Mac shows where you are as 2/3; iPhone and iPad as Question 2 of 3. If Submit does not go, the line beside it names the question that still needs an answer (marked needed).
  9. A link to open. Some agents ask you to do something in the browser, such as sign in. Click Open, do it, then click Done, or Gave up if you could not.
  10. For a question in words (the agent's turn has ended and its summary says Waiting on your answer), type your answer in the prompt and send it, as you would any prompt.

Grok always asks this way: its own question cards have no way to reach the app, so Grok's questions arrive as a turn that ends waiting on your answer.

Answer from wherever is closest. Answering on one device clears the card and the notification everywhere else.

Once you answer a card with questions, the conversation keeps what you said, in a bubble of yours: each question, and under it your answer in the card's own words, such as the choice you picked, several choices joined with commas, or what you typed in the box beside a choice. A question you left empty is left out. A card you declined or closed says You declined the agent's form or The form was closed.

Cursor's questions come as the same card, one question to a page; any of them can be left empty. A question with choices shows those choices, and a question without choices has a text box.

When Cursor or Grok is set to Always-approve in Settings ▸ Agent Runtimes, every permission request from that runtime is answered for you: no card, no Needs you, and no notification. Questions that are not permission to act still wait as above, including Grok's questions in words. Claude, Codex, Gemini, Antigravity and Copilot keep asking the way they always have.

When a runtime's sandbox could not start

Some runtimes run commands in a sandbox of their own, and on some computers or servers that sandbox cannot be set up. When that happens the agent stops, says Its sandbox could not start, and puts a card in the conversation, such as Claude's sandbox could not start, with Show error details for the runtime's own words.

  • Continue without sandbox turns that runtime's sandbox off for this agent only, and carries on: your prompt is sent again, or, if some commands already ran, the agent is asked to carry on rather than start over. The card says which before you choose. For Codex it means Full access, so its approval prompts are off too. The app's own folder and tool rules still apply.
  • Keep stopped leaves the agent stopped. Nothing is ever retried without the sandbox until you choose it.

Where the app cannot turn a runtime's sandbox off, the card says so and has no Continue. The same card, and the same choice, are on iPhone and iPad. A command refused inside a working sandbox, such as a write outside the project, is an ordinary failed command and brings no card. Gemini that never answers when it starts gets the card too: its own sandbox, turned on in its settings, stops it answering the app.

If it doesn't work

  • The card is gone but the agent is not working. It stopped, or the app restarted, before you answered. The conversation says Nobody answered this question before the agent ended. Send a prompt telling it to carry on.
  • No notification on the iPhone or iPad. Check that notifications are allowed for the app on the device. On the Mac, Settings ▸ Control plane ▸ Clients lists each paired device.