Visually distinguish between users who are actively interacting with the workspace and users who have the tab open but have gone idle. An active user has moved their mouse or clicked within the last 30 seconds; an idle user has been inactive for 30–90 seconds.
Knowing whether a colleague is truly "at their desk" versus just "has the tab open" is useful context when you're waiting for someone to finish editing or when you want to know if it's worth pinging them. Without idle detection, the presence indicator treats a user who left their computer 20 minutes ago the same as one actively working.
The presence system tracks the timestamp of each user's last interaction (mouse movement, click, keyboard input). Users with recent activity show as fully active (bright avatar). Users inactive for 30–90 seconds show as idle (dimmed or with a distinct visual treatment). Users inactive for more than 90 seconds are treated as offline. These thresholds are enforced client-side and broadcast as part of the presence payload.