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Your canister list

Every workspace keeps a list of canisters. Your personal list lives in this browser. An Agent’s list is shared with your team, and the Agent watches every canister on it, even when nobody is signed in.

Add a canister

Section titled “Add a canister”

  1. Open the canister: search for it by name or paste its ID.

  2. Choose Add to… and pick where it goes: this browser, or one of your Agents.

  3. Name it, and add tags if they help you find it later.

  4. If you are adding it to an Agent, decide how much the Agent may do.

Read health, cycles and memory, so Monitor and alerts work. It cannot change anything.
Also snapshots, settings and spending, run through the Agent. The Agent becomes a controller.
Observe is enough for health, cycles and alerts. Control lets the Agent act on the canister too.

Start with Observe. You can give more access later.

When someone else controls the canister

Section titled “When someone else controls the canister”

Giving an Agent access needs a controller of the canister. If that isn’t you, icLens gives you the exact command to send to someone who is, and keeps your request. Once they run it, the canister joins the list the next time you open icLens.

See what needs attention

Section titled “See what needs attention”

The list puts the canisters that need you first, lowest cycles at the top. Each one shows its state at a glance:

HealthyLow cyclesMemory highStoppedStale
A canister's state in the list.

Filter by state, tag or subnet to focus on a group. Select a canister to see its figures and recent events without leaving the list. In an Agent’s list, save a filter as a view and your whole team can use it.

Every canister also shows which of its signals the Agent receives, so you can tell at a glance what you can and can’t see yet:

Health, logs and metrics are arriving; traces aren't set up; availability is partial.

Act on several canisters at once

Section titled “Act on several canisters at once”

Select the canisters you want, then top them all up from the Agent’s Reserve in one review, or compare two of them side by side.

Edit, remove or create

Section titled “Edit, remove or create”
  • Rename a canister, or change its tags and notes, from its menu.
  • Removing a canister from a list never deletes it, and its history stays.
  • To create a new canister, use Create a canister on the Canisters page and pay from your wallet. See Pay from your wallet.

Good to know

Section titled “Good to know”
  • Adding a canister to a list never gives icLens, or anyone else, control of it.
  • The same canister can be in several lists, each with its own name, notes and history.
  • Your personal list exists only in this browser. Back it up from Settings.

Next

Section titled “Next”
Read a canister's overview
Keep canisters funded