Attention levels

Every message carries exactly one attention level. It expresses how urgent the message is and controls when the recipient sees it.

interrupt | next-checkpoint | background | fyi

• interrupt: highest urgency; handled ahead of all other messages.
• next-checkpoint: handle after the current safe stopping point.
• background: visible in the inbox; does not interrupt current work.
• fyi: visible and auditable, non-actionable by default.

Set the level on send or reply with --attention <level>.

How attention maps to delivery

In push delivery (Copilot CLI), the exchange maps attention to send mode automatically: interrupt is delivered as an immediate steering interjection into the running turn, ahead of enqueued messages; every other level is enqueued and arrives at the next turn boundary. Neither preempts a turn already running.

In pull mode, a waiter armed with --min-attention interrupt wakes only for urgent messages; lower levels stay durably buffered for the recipient’s next checkpoint. See Coordinate multiple sessions for the two-phase attention loop.

Latency note: in push mode interrupt is seen mid-stream between the model’s iterations; other levels wait for the turn boundary. In pull mode, agent wake dominates perceived latency, so interrupt means “handle at the next turn boundary.”

Next: Delivery guarantees