Track progress
How to monitor a build in progress — reading the build timeline, triaging clarifications, and knowing when a focus area is truly done.
Once a plan is published and the agent begins work, Penling's job shifts from spec management to progress visibility. This guide covers how to stay on top of a build without micromanaging it.
The build timeline
The build timeline is the primary view during active development. It shows:
- Focus area status — which focus areas are to do, in progress, in review, or done
- Active clarifications — open questions waiting for an answer
- Recent actions — discrete tasks the agent or team members have completed
- Checks — verification steps and their current state (passing / failing / pending)
The timeline is ordered chronologically within the current phase. Click any focus area to see its full spec, actions, checks, and history.
Tracking focus area progress
Focus areas move through four states:
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| To do | Not started — waiting for earlier dependencies to complete |
| In progress | Agent or team is actively working on this focus area |
| In review | Implementation is complete — checks being run, awaiting human review |
| Done | All results verified, all checks passing |
You can manually move a focus area between states. The agent also updates states automatically as it works.
Triaging clarifications
Open clarifications are surfaced prominently in the build timeline. Each one has:
- The question raised
- The context (what the agent was doing when it raised it)
- The focus area it's blocking
Answer clarifications promptly — every unanswered clarification is a paused agent. To answer, click the clarification, type your response, and decide whether the answer should update the focus area spec.
Understanding deviations
When the agent implements something differently from the spec — due to a technical constraint, a discovery, or a misread — it raises a deviation. A deviation is not a failure; it's the system surfacing a decision for you to make.
For each deviation, you have three options:
- Accept — the change is correct; update the spec to match
- Revert — the implementation should match the original spec; the agent will redo the work
- Defer — note the deviation and decide later (not recommended for long)
Knowing when a focus area is done
A focus area is done when all of its results are verifiably met. In Penling, this means:
- All checks linked to result statements are passing
- No open clarifications against this focus area
- No unaccepted deviations
When these conditions are met, Penling suggests marking the focus area done. You can override this and mark it done manually, but the checks give you confidence that "done" means done.
End of build
When all focus areas in the final phase are done, Penling prompts you to mark the initiative complete. This archives the build view, preserves the full history, and moves the initiative to the completed state.