How Signals become Lenses
Signals are the information available inside a Unit. Lenses are the shared insights Orbit synthesizes from those signals.
What counts as a signal
A signal can come from:
- A description or status change
- A Thread message or poll
- An Attachment
- A Relationship or dependency
- A time entry or estimate
- A Document or Diagram
- A meeting recording, transcript, or note
- A connected source item
- A supported provider comment from Jira, Azure DevOps, Linear, monday.com, or Wrike
What a Lens is
A Lens is one synthesized insight. It can draw from one or more sources and shows when it was produced and how much supporting signal is available.
The current categories are:
- Decisions
- Actions
- Risks
- Opportunities
- Open Questions
- Next Steps
Lenses are shared
Everyone with access to the Unit can use its shared Lenses. This differs from private Orbit chats.
The current product displays these six built-in categories. It does not expose a custom Lens builder in the reviewed code.
Next steps
Next: Explore Lenses and the Lens Map
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Updated on: 18/08/2026
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