What is On My Radar

On My Radar is a place to get a thought out of your head quickly and sort it out later. It is also a place your AI agents can read and write, using your permissions. After this page you will know the words the rest of the guides use.

What it is for

Capture is the point. There is one box, you type or paste into it, and nothing asks you to choose a folder, a type or a priority first. Sorting is a separate step you do when you have time, by hand or by asking an agent.

Because agents connect over MCP, a radar can also be a brief. You can put half-formed ideas on a radar and tell an agent to read it and start on what is there.

Blips

A blip is one captured item. It can be a sentence, a link, a photo, a file, a half-formed idea or a long essay.

You do not have to say what kind of thing it is. On My Radar looks at what you captured and picks a kind for you:

• A body that is only a web address becomes a link, and a preview is fetched for it.
• Files you attach make it an image (all pictures) or a file.
• A body longer than 600 characters reads as an essay.
• Anything else is a note. An agent can also set the kind when it captures a blip.

The kind only changes how the blip is drawn. A #word in the text becomes a tag. A first line written as a Markdown heading becomes the blip's title.

Radars

A radar holds blips about one thing: a project, a client, a reading queue. You choose a name, an optional tagline, a colour and a glyph (the "Look" section of the New radar dialog), and a Layout.

The layout is the radar's template. The ones most people use are Stream, Kanban, Microblog, Reading list, Decision log and Discussion. Which layouts you can choose can depend on your plan. See Templates and lanes for what each one does.

A blip belongs to one radar. You can share a radar with other people or publish it. See Sharing and roles.

Topics

A topic groups related radars, for example one project's board, decision log and discussion. Grouping does not share anything. Each radar keeps its own sharing unless the topic's sharing is turned on. The Topics screen shows each topic as "grouping only" or "shared throughout". See Topics.

The drop box and smart radars cannot be put in a topic.

State and lane

Every blip has a state. Blips on some radars also have a lane. They are two different things, and both can be true at once.

State: the same on every radar

State is the universal triage axis. There are exactly five values and they mean the same everywhere:

• Inbox: not triaged yet. A new blip starts here on most radars. A radar's template can start blips elsewhere: a Discussion radar starts each thread in its Open lane, which is Active. An agent can also choose the state when it captures a blip.
• Active: you are working on it or it matters now.
• Later: put off on purpose.
• Done: handled.
• Dropped: you decided not to pursue it. This is not deletion, and you can reopen it.

State drives the counts and filters that work across radars. The filter chips above a Stream's blips (All, Inbox, Active, Later, Done, Dropped), the is:inbox and is:active queries on dashboards, and search all read state.

Lane: the radar's own vocabulary

A lane is a stage defined by the radar's template. A Kanban radar has Backlog, To do, In progress, Blocked and Done. A Reading list has Unread, Reading, Finished and Abandoned. A Decision log has Proposed, Accepted, Rejected and Superseded. In the API and in agent tools, the lane is called status.

Only templates with lanes have them. A Stream and a Microblog have no lanes, so blips there have only a state. The owner of a radar can rename and replace the lanes on templates that allow it (Radar settings, Identity & behaviour, in the Template section). See Templates and lanes.

How the two connect

Each lane declares one state. When a blip lands in a lane, it takes that state. Moving a Kanban card to Done also makes it Done everywhere, so the Inbox count and the board never disagree. Several lanes can share a state: In progress and Blocked are both Active.

It works the other way only as a repair. If you set a blip's state and the lane it sits in contradicts it, the blip moves to a lane that fits. Marking a Kanban card Done moves it into the Done lane. If its lane already fits, it stays put, so confirming a Blocked card as Active leaves it Blocked. If the radar has no lane for that state, the blip stays where it is.

What you see depends on the layout:

• On a Stream, there are state filter chips and each card has a select for its triage state. The drop box is a Stream by default, so it works this way too.
• On a Kanban board, lanes are the columns. The state chips are hidden because the columns already say it, and each card has a lane select instead of a state select.
• On a Reading list, a Decision log and a Discussion, you get lane chips or lane selects and no state chips.
• On a Microblog there are no lanes. Triage is tucked into a "Post actions" menu on each post.

Tip: When you ask an agent to "mark it done", it can set the state and the right lane follows. When you ask it to "move it to Blocked", it names the lane.

The drop box

Every account has one drop box, a private radar for things with no home yet. It is for the thought you have before you know where it goes. You can reach it from anywhere with Quick drop, and an agent can sort it for you later.

The drop box is the one radar you cannot open up. It has no public page and takes no webhook, and sharing it is something only you can do, on screen. See Capture everywhere.

Smart radars

A smart radar holds no blips of its own. It is a saved search over tags: it gathers every blip carrying the tags you choose, from every radar you can read. In the web app you make one from a tag page with Create smart radar, and choose whether blips need any of the tags or every one of them.

You cannot capture into a smart radar or publish one. If a smart radar is shared, each person sees only the blips they could already read. Deleting a smart radar deletes the saved search only. The blips stay on the radars where they were captured.

Next

• Quickstart: sign in and capture your first blip.
• Capture everywhere: every way to get a blip in.
• Templates and lanes: what each layout does.
• Connect your agent: let an agent read and sort your radars.