The notch

Open Nock, find its main surfaces, and understand what it is doing.

The notch is Nock’s compact home at the top of your primary display. It shows when Nock is listening, working, or speaking, and opens into chat, cards, and other surfaces. On Windows, Nock appears in the top bar instead.

Open or close it

Hover over the resting notch and click to open Chat. On Mac, tap Control + Option to open chat without recording; hold the shortcut to speak. On Windows, use the agent shortcut shown in Settings → General → Shortcuts. The menu-bar item also gives you a way to open Settings.

Use × or Escape to close the notch. Ordinary chat surfaces also close when you click outside. Settings and the widget builder stay open until you close them explicitly. The header’s stop control interrupts Nock’s current response; a background task has its own Stop task control.

Choose a surface

The notch provides Chat, Tasks, Apps, Studio, and Web, plus Ideas, Discover, and Settings. These surfaces can open in a wide pane. Their role is different from the side panels:

Chat is your current conversation with Nock.
Tasks shows work Nock handed to a background worker and its status, questions, and results.
Apps shows connected services and app access.
Studio holds built-in tools, widgets, previews, and the path into the widget builder. Glass Canvas is a separate board that can also be opened from Studio.
Web opens Nock’s own browser.
Settings controls the app and account.
Ideas suggests things Nock could do for you; Discover is a feed of posts and sources.

The left-side Chats panel holds Nock conversations. The right-side Agents panel holds named agents and coding chats. Neither is the same as Tasks or Glass Canvas.

Read the state

Listening means audio is being captured. Thinking or a progress line means Nock is processing the request. Speaking means the answer is playing. A card or completed status is not proof that an external service accepted an action; read the result and any error before you try again.

The notch may open to show a response or a question. If you need to change the current Nock conversation, use the Chats panel and confirm the chat name before sending a follow-up. Use Tasks to inspect background work rather than treating the notch as its full history.

If you cannot find it

Check that Settings → General → Hide top notch is off and look on the primary display. On Windows, check the top bar. For side conversations, see Chats and history and Agents panel; for board work, see Glass Canvas.