Crystal Rail

Updated July 30, 2026

The crystal rail is the frosted-glass bar anchored to the edge of your screen. It’s your command center for navigating between gems, monitoring agent activity, and managing approvals.

What it shows

Each open gem appears as a tile in the rail, displaying:

  • The gem’s initial letter and custom icon/color
  • A red badge when approval requests are queued
  • A shimmer animation when an agent is waiting for your input

Quick actions

  • Click a tile to bring the terminal into focus on that gem
  • Click the tile again to open that gem’s agent activity panel: its agents’ live activity and token usage
  • Drag a folder onto the rail to open it as a new gem
  • Click + to create a new gem via the directory picker

To reach a gem’s menu (history, settings, optimize, resurrect, and auto-approve), click the ⋮ next to the gem’s tab (not the rail tile). See gems & shards.

agent activity panel

The diamond icon at the top (or left end, in top mode) of the rail opens the agent activity panel: a single view of every agent’s activity and token usage across all your gems. Click a gem tile a second time to open the same panel scoped to just that gem.

Position

The rail can sit on the left, right, or top edge of your screen.

Drag-to-snap: Grab the rail and drag it toward any screen edge. When you release, it snaps into position. No settings needed.

You can also set the position in Settings → general → appearance → RAIL POSITION or from the View > Rail Position menu.

When positioned at the top, the rail becomes a horizontal bar with tiles laid out left-to-right. Notification and approval panels drop into two columns on either side of the bar.

Hiding the rail

Toggle the rail on or off in Settings → general → appearance → crystal rail. When hidden, you can still manage gems from the gem sidebar down the left side of the window.

Approval badges

When Claude requests permission to run a tool, a red badge appears on the gem’s tile showing how many requests are pending. Click the tile to bring that gem to the front and review the approval panel.