Queue, steer or stop

Send a message while the agent works: queue it for later, steer it into the running turn, or stop the turn.

You never have to wait for the agent to finish before you type. A message you send mid-turn is either queued, to run as its own turn once the agent is done, or steered into the turn that is already running. Stop ends the turn instead. To write the message itself, with files, mentions and commands, see the composer.

Steer when the message changes the work in progress: a correction, a missing detail, “not that file, the other one”. The agent takes it in without starting over.

Queue when the message is a separate next task. It waits until the current turn ends, then runs on its own, so the work in progress isn’t disturbed.

Not sure? Queue. A queued message never interrupts anything, and you can still edit it, delete it or send it now.

Steer, queue or stop?

All three work only while a turn is running. When the agent is idle, every message you send starts a normal turn.

	Steer	Queue	Stop
What happens	The message joins the running turn. The agent keeps going and takes it into account.	The message waits above the composer, then runs as its own turn after the current one ends. Queued messages run strictly in order.	The turn ends. The session stays intact, so your next message carries on from where the agent stopped.
When the agent sees it	Codex at its next model call; Claude Code at its next step between tool calls	When its turn starts	Right away, though the turn can take a few seconds to wind down
What you see	The message, dimmed, with “Steering — joining the running turn…”, then the Steered into the running turn badge	A row in the queue panel, under a count such as “2 queued messages”	The Stop button dims and its square pulses, and the working indicator reads “Stopping…”
Use it for	Corrections and extra detail for the current task	The next task	Work going the wrong way

Steer and Queue are the only two modes. A message sent while files are still uploading waits for them and says so: “Steering — waiting for the upload to finish…” or “Queuing — waiting for the upload to finish…”.

Choose what Enter does

While the agent works, Enter and the ↑ button send your message your default way, and ⌘Enter sends it the other way. Use Ctrl instead of ⌘ on Windows and Linux. Hover ↑ to check: its tooltip reads “Queue · ⌘⏎ to steer” or “Steer · ⌘⏎ to queue”.

Until you choose, the default is Queue. The first time a message lands in the queue, a card appears above it asking Queue or steer new messages? (“Queue waits for the agent to finish; Steer joins the running turn.”).

You pick	Your default becomes	And
Queue	Queue	Nothing else changes.
Steer	Steer	The messages already waiting are steered into the running turn, in order.

Either answer hides the card for good, on every device. To change your mind later, open Account menu → Settings and set New messages, or use More actions → New message settings on any queued row. Change your settings covers the page. Buttons and forms inside the agent’s interactive answers don’t follow this default: a click while the agent works is always sent as a steer.

Manage the queue

The queue panel sits on top of the composer. Its toggle, a count such as “3 queued messages”, folds the list away. Each row shows one message, with any context chips inline. Hover a row to see its actions.

A queued message waits on top of the composer until the agent finishes.

Action	What it does
Send now	Steers the message into the running turn, or sends it as a new turn if the agent is idle. If the agent can’t take it, it stays queued with “The agent can’t take a message right now — it stays queued”.
Pencil (Edit queued message)	Opens the text in the composer under “Editing queued message”. Press Enter or ↑ (Save queued message) to save. Esc or Cancel drops the edit. Your draft comes back either way.
Trash (Delete queued message)	Removes the message.
More actions → New message settings	Opens the Settings page.

A newly queued message shows dimmed, without actions, until the server has it. The queue holds at most 20 messages, each up to 100,000 characters. There is no reordering: a message keeps the place it was added in. Editing changes only the text, and context chips come back as plain text while you edit. Images attached to the message stay with it.

Queued messages run in whatever mode the session is in, plan mode included. They belong to the session, so they keep waiting if you close the tab, and deleting the session deletes them.

Why did the queue pause?

A queue never runs on blindly after something went wrong. It pauses, and a strip at the top of the panel reads “Paused — ” followed by the reason. Click Resume to start the next message.

Reason on the strip	What happened	What to do
”you stopped the agent”	You pressed Stop while messages were waiting.	Resume when you’re ready, or delete the messages that no longer apply.
”the turn failed — fix things up”	A turn started from the queue ended with an error.	Read the error in the transcript, send a fix, then Resume.
”the server restarted — resume to continue”	The turn was cut short by a server restart, not by you.	Resume.
”couldn’t send the queued message: …”	The next message couldn’t start. The rest of the line says why.	Fix the cause, then Resume. The message is still first in line.

While paused, Send now sends only that one message, and the rest stay paused. Deleting the last waiting message clears the pause.

Steer the running turn

A steer is part of the turn, not a new one. It shows dimmed with “Steering — joining the running turn…” until the agent takes it. In the transcript it then sits at the point it joined, with a corner-arrow badge underneath. Follow the agent’s work explains the rest of the transcript.

Some activity can’t take a steer. Alpha then queues the message instead, and it appears in the queue panel. This happens during /compact and /review (slash commands), while a turn is still starting, while a stopped turn is still winding down, and for a message longer than about 45 KB.

Stop the agent

While the agent works and the composer is empty, the send button becomes a square Stop button. Click it, or press Esc in the composer. Esc stops the turn even when you have text typed, and your text stays in the composer.

An empty composer mid-turn shows Stop in place of Send.

The button dims and its square pulses, and the working indicator reads “Stopping…”. Pressing again does nothing. If the agent hasn’t stopped within 10 seconds, Alpha ends the agent’s process outright. Nothing in your workspace is undone either way.

After Stop
The session	Intact. Your next message carries on from it, with the full history.
Files the agent already changed	Stay changed. Ask the agent to revert anything you don’t want.
Steers the agent hadn’t taken in	In a Claude Code session, cancelled. They don’t run later.
The queue	If messages are waiting, paused with “you stopped the agent” until you click Resume.
A message sent while it’s stopping	Queued, and held by the same pause.
Claude Code workflows	Stopped with the turn. To stop one workflow and keep the turn, use Stop on its card in the transcript.

Closing the tab is not a Stop. Turns run on the server, so the agent keeps working, and your queue keeps moving, until the turn ends or you stop it.

Next steps

Follow the agent's work

Read commands, edits and plans as they stream, and find where a steer landed.

Plan mode and the agent's questions

Have the agent ask and plan first, so fewer turns need steering at all.

Choose the agent and model

Codex and Claude Code take steers at different moments. See what else differs.

Keyboard shortcuts

Enter, ⌘Enter and Esc alongside every other key in the workbench.