The audit trail of alignment — who voted, who flipped, what status changed, and on which version of the brief.
Overview
The Activity tab is a version-grouped, append-only log of what's happened on a brief. Alignment votes, chat reactions, Brief status transitions, and document edits all appear here, bucketed by the version of the Brief they happened against. If someone raised a concern on Version 3 and it was resolved by Version 4, the whole progression is visible in one scroll. Blueprints, Goals, Initiatives, and Notes have the same Activity tab, including the entry that shows how the document was created.
The timeline is the visible artefact of the Align leg of the loop. Refine produces the Brief, Align is the team converging on it, and the timeline is how everyone sees that convergence happening.
The Activity tab updates in real time. New votes, reactions, status changes, and comments appear as soon as they're submitted — no refresh needed.
React to a teammate's message in the Brief chat, and the reaction is recorded as its own entry in the Activity feed. Reactions preserve a lightweight response beside the Brief history; alignment votes remain a separate action.
How It Works
Open the Activity tab — Inside any Brief, click Activity in the document panel.
Start at the current version — The current version sits at the top of the timeline.
Browse by version — Activity is grouped under collapsible version headers (Version 1, Version 2, …). Each group shows the votes, status changes, and edits that happened while that version was current. Every group starts expanded. Click an older version's header to collapse it; the current version stays open.
Cast or update an alignment vote — From the alignment chip in the Brief toolbar, vote Ready or Not yet. Each vote is appended to the timeline as a new entry, so flips show up in the version they happened on. Clearing your vote doesn't appear in Activity. If you're the Brief's owner or a participant in its thread, you show as Waiting again.
Read concerns — Each Not yet reason appears under that person's name in the alignment panel. In Activity, the vote shows as Marked Not yet with its reason.
Act on feedback — Use the comments to update the Brief or continue the conversation in the brief's chat. When a concern is resolved, the member can update their vote.
Load older versions — Click Show older versions at the bottom of the timeline to page through earlier versions.
Key Capabilities
Version-grouped timeline: Activity is bucketed by document version, not just chronologically. You can see which feedback was given against which state of the brief.
Append-only votes: Every vote, including a changed vote, appends a new entry. The timeline never rewrites history, and realtime delivers new entries instantly.
Status changes are first-class: Brief transitions (Draft → Refining → Shipping → Done) appear in the timeline alongside votes. Status changes triggered by the AI agent show up here too, attributed to Hamster.
Live updates: New votes and status changes appear immediately without refreshing the page. The tab also recovers cleanly when you return to it after a break.
Member identification: Each item shows the team member's name and avatar; AI-driven changes show the Hamster avatar.
Pagination: Load older version groups on demand. A failed load leaves the existing timeline intact and surfaces the error inline.
Context-aware empty state: New Brief with no content gets a different empty state from a Brief with content but no activity.
What Counts as Activity
The Activity tab tracks:
Alignment votes — Marked Ready or Marked Not yet.
Comments on votes — notes left alongside an alignment vote explaining the reasoning.
Reactions — emoji reactions to activity entries that sync with Slack when connected. Hover over any activity item and click the emoji button to react.
Message reactions — emoji reactions added in the Brief chat appear here as their own activity entries and sync with Slack when connected. React from the message in chat; the Activity entry links back to it.
Status changes — transitions between Draft, Refining, Shipping, Delivered, Done, and Archived. Status changes made by the AI agent through chat are logged here too.
Document version markers — references to the Brief version each batch of activity happened on. The actual content diffs live in Document Versioning.
Creation — how the document was created: Created manually, Created via CLI, Created via MCP, Created during onboarding, Created by Hamster, or Created by routine. When there's more to show, click the entry to see Hamster's reasoning and links to the conversation, routine, or Methods behind it.
Using Alignment to Move Forward
The Activity tab is most useful as a forcing function before generating a plan. Share the Brief, ask teammates to review, and check the timeline to see whether there's consensus.
The alignment chip in the Brief toolbar shows the verdict. It reads Ready? while people are still deciding, Not ready when anyone has voted Not yet, and Ready when everyone counted is Ready.
Click the chip to open the alignment panel. It shows a tally such as 2/3 ready and your Ready / Not yet toggle.
Not yet asks What needs to change?, and your reason shows under your name.
The panel also lists the Brief's owner and the participants in its thread who can vote but haven't yet, marked Waiting. They count toward the tally.
Ask for review notifies the Brief participants or the Team members, and also moves the Brief to Shipping. Only people who can manage Briefs see it.
Click your current vote (Ready or Not yet) again to clear it.
Each vote and change is recorded in Activity. A cleared vote is not.
Version grouping helps when concerns predate edits: if a stakeholder raised a concern on an earlier version and the Brief has since been updated, you can see whether their concern was addressed by the changes in a later version — and whether they've updated their vote to reflect that.
Tips
Share the Brief with stakeholders before generating a Plan and ask them to cast alignment votes. A Brief with documented alignment is easier to hand off and less likely to Result in rework.
Use the version grouping to trace decisions. If you need to know why a requirement changed, the activity history shows the feedback that prompted each revision.
Review the Activity tab during standups to see who still needs to weigh in.
If a teammate's concern has been addressed by edits, ask them to update their vote so the alignment panel reflects the current state.