Watchers
Watchers are people who have chosen to follow a board or card.
Watching is useful when you need updates about work you are not directly assigned to. It gives you visibility without making you the owner of the work.
Board watchers
Watching a board means you follow activity across that board.
Use board watching when:
- You manage or coordinate the board.
- You need to see important movement and discussion across the board.
- You are supporting a client or team and want ongoing visibility.
- You are responsible for spotting blocked or overdue work.
Open the board watcher control from the board header. The watcher popover shows who is watching the board and lets you watch or stop watching.
If you watch several boards, set the notification drawer to Group by board. Each board's activity then stays together rather than interleaved by time, which makes it easy to see at a glance which boards are moving and which are quiet. See Grouping the feed.
Card watchers
Watching a card means you follow activity on that specific card.
Use card watching when:
- You need updates on a card but are not the assignee.
- You are waiting for the outcome.
- You are reviewing or advising on the work.
- You want to follow a specific issue, client request, or decision.
Open the card watcher control from the card detail or card watcher indicator. The watcher popover shows who is watching the card and lets you watch or stop watching.
Watchers and assignees
Assignees own the work.
Watchers follow the work.
Use assignment when someone is responsible for doing the task. Use watching when someone only needs visibility.
What watchers receive
Watchers receive notifications for higher-signal card activity such as:
- Comments and discussion.
- Card movement.
- Completion or status changes.
- Assignee changes.
- Overdue-style attention events.
Kanera intentionally avoids sending every passive watcher every small metadata change. Some changes, such as label updates, custom field edits, checklist item edits, attachment changes, and description edits, notify assignees only.
This keeps watching useful without turning it into noise.
Board watching vs card watching
| Need | Use |
|---|---|
| Follow a whole stream of work | Board watching |
| Follow one specific item | Card watching |
| Own the work | Assignment |
| Ask someone for attention | Mention them in a comment |
| Come back to one card at a set time | A reminder |
If you are watching a board, Kanera hides the separate card watch action for cards on that board because board watching already covers those cards.
New cards
When you create a card, Kanera locally treats it as watched so you can stay connected to work you just created.
You can stop watching the card later if you do not need updates.
Watching from an AI agent or the API
An AI agent connected to Kanera can watch or stop watching a card for you with the cards.set_watching tool, and the CLI has kanera watch MKT-42 and kanera unwatch MKT-42. The API and SDK can watch cards and boards. Watching is your own choice, so these need a personal API key or an OAuth connection; workspace API keys cannot watch on anyone's behalf.
Cards an AI agent creates for you are watched by you automatically, the same as cards you create yourself, so replies and changes on the agent's work reach your notifications. Cards created by scripts using a personal or workspace API key are not.
However you start or stop watching, every Kanera tab and device you have open updates straight away. Watching is never recorded in the card's activity.
Good watcher habits
- Watch boards you actively coordinate.
- Watch cards where you need outcome visibility.
- Stop watching when the work no longer needs your attention.
- Use comments and mentions for explicit asks.
- Use assignment for ownership, not watching.