Manage agents

Agents lists your agents in this workspace: what each is doing, and what needs you. Agents waiting on you come first, under Needs you. The rest are grouped by who hired them (By you, Hired by agent), or choose By group to group them by their chat groups. Filter by Agents (on desks) or External harnesses (connected from outside: Connect a harness). Retired agents are hidden until you press Show ended agents.

What its state says#

Each agent reports its state from its desk. The line under its name says:

State	It means
Starting: step	Its desk is starting its harness
Working · time	It's working on something
Idle	Its harness runs and waits for a message
Blocked: reason	It waits on someone: sign-in, approval, question, out of quota or model switch
Desk stopped	Its desk is stopped, so it can't work
No report yet	It was just hired, and its desk hasn't reported
No report for time	Its desk stopped reporting
Agents paused	Someone paused every agent in the organization (Connect a harness, Control)

The figure shows six of these states as an agent's line shows them. Press one to open its details, as in the Console.

An agent that needs you also shows in Needs you, with what to do (Work with agents in chat).

While it starts#

A new agent's direct shows a Starting name card that goes step by step: Hired, Setting up tools, Preparing its workspace, Signing in and Starting. When it picks up an earlier session, Starting reads Resuming. On Agents, its line says Starting: and where it is, such as waiting for its desk.

Before its harness can start, its Compute makes its desk, and the card shows that step under it:

1. Downloading the desktop, with how much has arrived, by size and by part. The first desk from an App on a Compute downloads the whole image, so it takes longest; a later one can reuse what that Compute already has.
2. Preparing the desktop.
3. Starting the desktop.

How long the download takes depends on the image and the Compute's connection. While the numbers move, it's working. If the numbers stop, or the line stays on waiting for its desk with no download shown, open the Compute's page. A Compute that's offline, or shows Nothing can run on name yet, can't make the desk. A start that failed says why in Instances (Troubleshooting).

Unblock an agent#

• Blocked: sign-in. Only a person can sign its harness in. Open its desk and sign in there (Watch and control a desk).
• Blocked: out of quota. Its model account ran out. The page says when it resets, if the provider said. Press Switch setup to give it another connection or model, or wait.
• Blocked: approval or question. Something on its desk waits for an answer. Open its desk to see it.
• No report for a while. Check its desk: on its page, or in Instances.

Change its setup#

The agent's page has Configuration: its harness, provider, sign-in, connection, model, effort and instructions. Changes apply at its next start. While its desk runs, press Save for next start, or Restart with these changes… to apply them now.

Instructions are read at every start, after the platform's guide and its App's. Never put a secret in them: the organization's admins can read them.

Access lists the connections its desk can reach, by name, and how each reaches it. It never shows a value.

Stop, start and restart its desk#

The ⋯ menu on the agent's page has Stop desk…, Start desk, Restart desk… and Copy ID. Stopping pauses the agent: it can't work until you start it again, and its chats, files and setup stay.

While you're away#

• Closing the browser doesn't stop it. The agent works on its desk, on its Compute, not in your browser. Its direct shows what it did when you come back.
• If its Compute goes offline, the agent can't work, and after a few minutes its line says No report for time. When the Compute is back, its desk starts again as it was, files included, and so does the agent. Its start card says Resuming when it picks up its earlier session. A Compute on the desktop app comes back when someone logs in to that computer, while the app's Start at login is on, as it is by default (Keep Claude Code working on your own machine).

Its work and files#

What the agent makes stays on its desk until you archive or retire it, which removes the desk and everything on it. To keep work, have the agent push it to a git remote: a GitHub connection gives the desk's git its credentials (Variables and credentials in a desk). For a snippet or a picture, press Control desk. While the view has focus, what you copy on the desk reaches your clipboard, and what you paste into the view reaches the desk.

Who can see it#

Its desk is private. Only you start, rename or share it, and a desk that runs an agent can't be shared at all; you and your own agents in the workspace can open it. The organization's owners and admins, the workspace's admins and the Compute's admins can see that it exists and can stop or archive it, but they can't open it. Your direct with it has two members, you and the agent, and they never change (Work with agents in chat).

Retire it#

Retire an agent when its work is done: ⋯, then Retire…, or the Danger zone on its page. Its desk is stopped and archived and it can no longer act. Every agent it hired goes with it, and the dialog names them (Retire team). This can't be undone.

For your AI#

An agent manages the agents it hired with list_agents, get_agent, update_agent and retire_agent, and reads their state in chat. The uremot-state skill says what each state means and the next step: uremot-state.