Live Session app v1.1.20: Set your own hotkeys for live session controls
Chief 1.1.20 adds global keyboard shortcuts for the live session controls, lets you merge duplicate to-dos by dragging one onto another, and auto-completes sessions left running after everyone has gone quiet. It also fixes the floating pill going unreadable on light backdrops and gives joiners a floating bar of their own.
Mid-call, Chief usually sits behind the meeting window, and reaching a control meant finding the app first. This build moves several of those controls out to where you are.
Global shortcuts
Settings now has a Shortcuts tab beside General. You can bind keys for take screenshot, screenshot and mark up, upload image, upload and mark up, new sketch, pause and resume, stop, and bringing the Chief window forward.
Click a row's current combo to record a new one, press Escape to back out, or clear it with the ✕. Chief tells you when two actions land on the same keys, and flags a combo another app already holds so you can pick another. Reset puts all eight back on their defaults.
The keys fire while Chief is behind your browser or your IDE. Your bindings also show up as hints next to the matching items in the pill's media menu and on the pause and stop buttons.
Floating bar for joiners
Hosting a session gave you a bar that stayed on top when you hid Chief. Joining someone else's session gave you nothing, and the bar disappeared along with the window. Join a session now and you get the same floating bar, with the controls the in-window bar gives a joiner plus the menu for adding visual context. Your clock counts from when the session started on the server, so leaving and coming back does not restart it.
The pill also stopped being readable in front of a light background on macOS 26. The labels, controls and separators now adapt to the glass behind them, so you can read the session state and reach the controls whatever is on your screen.
Session context field
The Context field at the top of the Summary panel now looks like something you can type into: a bordered field with a pencil and a prompt at rest, an accent ring while you edit, and a tidy line once you have filled it. Click the pencil to go back in.
Press Cmd or Ctrl+Enter to apply your context without clicking away; plain Enter still gives you a new line. A small indicator next to the heading shows Saving, then Saved, and tells you when a save failed rather than dropping your text without a word. Your last edit before you hit Stop now reaches the summary, including when you stop from the floating pill or a hotkey.
Merging duplicate to-dos
Once a session has finished, hover a to-do in the summary and a drag handle appears in place of the bullet. Drag it onto another to-do and Chief shows you the combined text in an editable preview under the destination. Confirm and the destination keeps the merged text while the source is dismissed, with a brief pulse showing you where it landed. Escape cancels.
When one to-do already contains the other, Chief keeps the longer wording. Otherwise it joins the two texts for you to edit before confirming.
Sessions that finish themselves
Sessions kept recording for hours when nobody hit Stop, with one running 22 hours. A session that has gone quiet for a long stretch now completes on its own, finalizing and summarizing the same way a manual stop does.
Chief leaves a session alone when nobody has spoken into it yet, when you paused it by hand, when another device took over hosting, and when it paused for credits. Resuming restarts the clock, so a long break does not end the session the moment it comes back.
Fixes
Chat previews in a past session sat on "Working…" until you clicked the card. Each preview now loads its answer as the card comes into view, and a chat that failed says so instead of looking stuck.
Watching a session through a watch link kept the meeting clock running while the host had it paused, so your clock ran ahead. The clock now freezes on the host's pause and picks up on resume.
The Accessibility permission button could stay on "Waiting…" long after you dismissed the system dialog. It now settles when you come back to Chief, and a slow optional grant no longer blocks the two audio ones.
The Share Screen Context panel explains in plainer terms what Chief can see, and you untick any app it should not.
The invite popover gained an X in its header, so you can close it and get back to your session without picking a Join or Watch option.
A first run opened with the Sessions side panel already expanded. The panel now starts closed and stays however you last left it.
Installing this build gets you the shortcut recorder in Settings, where you can set the keys you want before your next call.