> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.forepost.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Now bar

> What's open right now — open count, oldest unresponded, unassigned. A small strip above the Daily Brief.

The Daily Brief is your read-of-the-day. The **Now bar** is the read-of-the-minute: a compact strip between the brief tabs and the brief body, telling you what's open in the queue right now.

## What it shows

```
Now  ·  42 open  ·  oldest 3h12m  ·  4 unassigned  ·  on shift: Sarah, Tom, Priya
```

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Open count" icon="inbox">
    Total conversations in `state=open` in your helpdesk.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Oldest unresponded" icon="hourglass">
    Age of the oldest open conversation, in human-readable units. Turns red after 60 minutes.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Unassigned" icon="circle-question">
    Open conversations with no admin assignee.
  </Card>

  <Card title="On shift" icon="user-clock">
    Agents whose helpdesk presence is not in away mode.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

The strip only renders when a snapshot is available. If no helpdesk is connected, the bar stays hidden.

## How it's populated

The worker polls your connected helpdesk every 10 minutes and stores one row in `live_queue_snapshots`. The Now bar reads the most recent row.

<Note>
  Today the only live source is Intercom. Other providers will populate the table as their adapters land. The bar shows the source label so you can tell which helpdesk the snapshot came from.
</Note>

You can force a poll from the bar via the **Refresh** button. The endpoint is rate-limited to 30 calls per hour per workspace; the cron's auto-poll counts against the same budget so you're not stepping on yourself.

## Via Slack

If you have the [Slack integration](/help/slack) enabled:

```
/forepost now
```

Returns the latest snapshot in-line:

> *Now:* 42 open · oldest 3h12m · 4 unassigned (as of 2026-05-11 09:42 UTC)

The Slack output uses the same row as the in-app bar — no extra poll fires.

## API

```bash theme={null}
GET  /now            # latest snapshot
POST /now/poll       # owner/admin: force a refresh (rate-limited 30/hr)
```

## What it isn't

* **Not a triage view.** The Now bar tells you *what*; you triage in your helpdesk. Click the open count (coming) to jump to the filtered helpdesk inbox via your deep-link template.
* **Not a real-time stream.** 10-minute polling is the cadence — fresh enough to spot a queue spike, sparse enough not to hammer the helpdesk API.

## Privacy

Snapshots store counts only; no conversation content. The `onShiftAgents` field is a JSON array of agent names from the helpdesk's admins endpoint. Snapshots older than seven days are pruned by the cron.