Kiesel.
I often have several AI assistants working at once. Kiesel shows me which one is waiting for my answer.
- The problem
- When several AI assistants are working for me at once, I easily lose track. One of them has been waiting an hour for my yes, and I did not notice.
- The solution
- A small figure sits in the bottom corner of my screen, with a sign up in the menu bar. When something is waiting for me, the figure shows it in a speech bubble, and one click takes me straight there.
- How I built it
- Kiesel is a small Mac app, built with my AI team in one morning and checked by an independent reviewer the same day. The assistants report what they are doing, and Kiesel only reads along. It has run on my Mac since October 2026.
How Kiesel shows what’s going on.
The sprout on his head tells me what’s going on. Every mood reads without colour too, even on a still.
- Working sprout bobs
- Waiting for me turns round, waves
- Done one jump, then calm
- Something went wrong flinches once, then still
- Very quiet is something stuck?
- Nothing running breathes slowly
- Quiet time sprout curled up
- Can’t see cloud over its head
Who is waiting for me right now?
On most days several AI assistants are working for me at once: one on a proposal, one on a website, one on a rebuild. Each of them stops at some point and needs a word from me. But you only see that if you look. So you keep looking, or you miss it.
A figure lets me know.
Kiesel sits in the bottom right corner of the screen. When something is working, its sprout bobs. When something is waiting for me, it turns round and waves, and a speech bubble says what is pending. When something is done, it jumps. One click on “Open” takes me to the right place. That is all it can do, and that is the point.
I built Kiesel for my own work, and it has been in use since October 2026. Kiesel runs on my Mac and is not a product you can download. That it exists says a lot about how I work. My team is made of AI assistants, and Kiesel makes sure none of them is left waiting for me.
/ tech decisions
Three decisions that mattered.
Safety
Read only, never act
Kiesel reads status reports and shows them. It never answers on its own and never approves anything. Its only button says “Open” and takes me to the place where I decide.
Reporting
The assistants report in
Each assistant reports its status through GitHub, where my code lives. Kiesel needs no access to the assistants themselves, only a key that can read and do nothing else.
Figure
You can tell from its posture
Kiesel has eight moods, from “working” to “can’t see anything right now”. The signal sits in the sprout on its head, so you can read it without relying on colour. Every mood also works as a still image.
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