> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.randomlabs.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Orchestration & Tracing

> Review parent runs, subagents, background agents, programs, and trace activity in Slate

Understanding Slate's orchestration UI will help you follow longer work without losing track of what is happening.

Slate can split work across agents, keep background work running, and show program activity in the TUI. This page covers the user-facing places where that work appears.

## Orchestration in the timeline

When Slate orchestrates a task, it can hand pieces to several agents at once and run them in parallel. Those agents show up as a grid of inline subagent cards, one per agent.

Double-click any card to jump into that agent's session and follow the full conversation.

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion defaultOpen title="Subagent cards">
    Subagent cards show the practical state of each child agent:

    * **Status and progress** while the child agent runs
    * **Interruption** if a run is stopped before finishing
    * **Completion** when the child agent finishes
    * **Changed-file summaries** so you can quickly see what the child agent touched
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Subagent sessions and overlay

Subagents have their own child sessions. From the current parent session, open the subagent overlay to review those child sessions without losing the parent context.

In the overlay, you can move through the child sessions for the current parent session, inspect their status and activity, and open a child session when you need more detail.

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Review child sessions" icon="sitemap">
    Browse the subagent sessions that belong to the current parent session.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Open details" icon="up-right-from-square">
    Open a child session when you need to inspect its work more closely.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Return to parent" icon="arrow-left">
    Use parent-session navigation to get back to the original session afterward.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Background agents

Some work can continue in the background. When background agents are running, Slate shows a running indicator so you know there is active work outside the current foreground turn.

Background agents let Slate hand off work without blocking the main conversation. While one or more agents run in the background, you can keep talking with Slate: plan next steps, queue up additional tasks, or spin up more agents to parallelize work across several tasks at once.

You do not need to track when background agents finish. When one completes, Slate receives a notification, `◉ Background agent notification received`, and surfaces the results in conversation so you can see what happened without leaving your current chat window.

Use the background-agents sidebar to manage that work:

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Open" icon="up-right-from-square">
    Inspect a running background agent.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Stop" icon="stop">
    Interrupt background work you no longer want to continue.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Open session" icon="folder-open">
    Jump to the session for that background agent.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Built-in programs in the UI

`goal` and `deep-research` are built-in programs. They are user-visible workflows, not something you need to author before using Slate.

Open the Programs sidebar to browse program runs. Program run cards summarize each run, and the program views help you inspect the work at different levels.

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Run cards" icon="list-check">
    Review the current state and summary for a program run.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Graph view" icon="diagram-project">
    See the workflow shape and dependencies.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Details view" icon="circle-info">
    Inspect more information about a selected run or step.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Trace activity cards

Trace activity cards show a high-level view of what agents did during a run. Read them to follow the major steps and connect visible results back to the work Slate performed.