Read the notch (and coordinate agents)

Tellie isn't only write-only. It also exposes what's on the notch so agents and scripts can read it: the live roster right now, and the recent history. That turns the notch into a tiny shared coordination surface for a fleet of agents.

Two local files back this (no API, no network):

~/Library/Application Support/Tellie/state.json: the live roster snapshot. Always written. Free.
~/Library/Application Support/Tellie/PulseLog/YYYY-MM-DD.jsonl: the rolling daily history. Written only when Tellie Pro is active.

Read the current state

CLI:

terminal

tellie status                 # human-readable
tellie status --json          # raw JSON for scripting

MCP (from an agent): call read_notch (no arguments). It returns the live roster + any parked send.

Read the history

terminal

tellie log                                   # last 24h, last 20 entries
tellie log --source CI --since 6h            # just CI, last 6 hours
tellie log --day 2026-06-03 --json           # a specific day, raw JSON

MCP: call read_log with optional source, sinceHours, limit.

Coordinate a fleet

Reading the roster before acting is the basis of multi-agent coordination: an agent checks whether another is already on a job before claiming it, hands off, and watches for "done". That full pattern is its own recipe, built on the reads above: Agent fleet coordination.

Summarize your day

bash

tellie log --since 24h --json | jq -r '.[] | "\(.source): \(.text)"'

Or ask an agent: "Read my Tellie history for the last few hours and write me a standup." It calls read_log and summarizes.

Notes

status / read_notch are free (live glance). log / read_log return history only when Tellie Pro is recording.
Reads never touch the notch; they only read local files.