Run and monitor

Running a workflow

Three ways:

• Click the Run button in the top-right of the canvas.
• Press Ctrl/Cmd+R.
• Click an individual agent's play icon to run just that agent (sandbox mode: runs in isolation).

When you click Run, Cerevisor opens the Execution Modal showing a pre-run summary:

• Total agents.
• Wave count.
• Estimated cost (per provider).
• Permissions the run will need.
• Skill availability check (preflight).

If anything's wrong, missing provider, gated feature, incompatible skill: the modal blocks the run with an actionable error.

If everything checks out, click Run in the modal to start. Click Cancel to dismiss.

The Execution Modal

Once a run starts, the modal shows live status. Top section: overall progress and run cost.

Below that: one card per agent, grouped by wave. Each card shows:

• Status badge: Waiting / Running / Completed / Failed / Skipped.
• Streaming output preview (the agent's response as it's generated).
• Tool calls in flight, with the tool name and arguments.
• Wall-clock time so far.
• The agent's resolved provider + model.

Click any agent card to expand it for full output and full tool-call history.

The modal also shows:

• Current wave indicator at the top.
• Run cost so far (per provider).
• Permission prompts as banner toasts when an agent needs your sign-off.

Stop, pause, resume

Three buttons in the modal:

Button	Behavior
Stop	Hard stop. All running agents are cancelled; the run ends. Use for true emergencies.
Pause	After each agent's current tool call finishes, the orchestrator pauses. Resume picks up where you left off.
Resume	Continue from a paused state.

The Execution Modal can be closed with Escape: the run continues in the background. To reopen, click the status indicator in the status bar.

Permission prompts

When an agent calls a destructive tool (typically bash, write_file, edit_file), the Permission Modal opens.

Options:

Button	Scope
Allow once	This single call.
Allow always for this run	Every call of this tool for the rest of the run.
Allow always for this tool	Permanently — writes to WorkflowPermissions.
Deny	Returns an error to the agent.

Permission prompts pause only the agent that asked, other agents in the same wave continue running.

Approval gates

If a connection has flow type Approval Gate, the workflow pauses when it reaches the gate. The Approval Gate Modal shows:

• The upstream agent's output preview.
• The approval prompt you wrote on the connection.
• The downstream agent that's waiting.

Click Approve to proceed or Reject to halt the run.

Ask-user prompts

If an agent calls the ask_user tool, the User Question Modal opens. It shows the question and either a list of choice buttons or a free-form text input.

The agent pauses until you respond. Other agents (in the same or other waves) continue running.

Run cost

The status bar shows running cost. The Execution Modal breaks it down per provider, per agent. Costs come from the provider's reported usage:

• Anthropic: reported tokens × per-model pricing.
• OpenAI-compatible: reported tokens × pricing if your provider returns it (Ollama returns no cost; local = always $0).
• Codex CLI: always $0 (subscription billing).
• Cursor Agent: always $0 (subscription billing).

After a run, the full cost breakdown is saved to the audit log.

Audit log

Every run writes an NDJSON file to ~/.cerevisor/audit-logs/<session-id>.ndjson. The log contains:

• Every event the orchestrator emitted.
• Every tool call (name, arguments, result).
• Every permission decision.
• Every model call (provider, model, tokens, cost).
• Errors with stack traces.

You can open these files in any text editor. They're the truth of what happened.

Replaying a workflow

A .cerevisor file is the workflow definition. Re-opening it and pressing Run re-runs from scratch.

If you want to re-run with a single agent's output replaced (e.g. "use last run's research, regenerate the writing"), there's no first-class "rerun from agent X" yet, workaround: copy the research output to a markdown file, attach it as an input to the writer, and run just the writer.

Crash recovery

If Cerevisor crashes or is force-closed mid-run:

• On next launch, Cerevisor detects the unfinished session via its checkpoint.
• The Incomplete Session Modal opens.
• You can Resume (continues from the last checkpoint) or Discard (deletes the session).

Resume is opportunistic; it works for most workflow shapes, but very recently-started agents may need to redo work. The modal shows session metadata so you can decide.

Background runs

You don't have to keep the Execution Modal open. Close it (Esc) and the run continues. The status bar shows a live indicator with the current wave. Reopen the modal any time to see live state.

Cloud runs (Cursor only)

If you set the workflow's run mode to cloud and use the Cursor Agent provider, the run executes on Cursor's cloud VMs. Cloud runs survive Cerevisor restarts. Manage them via the Cloud Sessions modal (title bar icon). See Cursor cloud runs.