Automations

An automaton is an agent of your own, with a name, a brief and a model, that keeps its own conversation on this Mac and never interrupts Work.

Automatons live in Home › Team › Agents, in the Automatons section marked Personal. They run on this Mac, for you only; team automatons are not available yet.

Switch the section between List and Canvas. In Canvas, choose an automaton to read its conversation beside the drawing, and Details opens its page.

Team › Agents lists what waits for your answer, your automatons, and the installed agents you can start in Chat.

Needs you lists automaton runs waiting for an approval or an answer; choose one to open it. Your other Macs lists asks from agents on your other Macs, and an answer here settles it there.

Under Agents, each installed agent has an owner list; pick a person or Unassigned. To start one now, use Run an agent in Chat.

1. 1Open Home › Team, then Agents.
2. 2In Run an agent in Chat, choose the agent under Choose an agent.
3. 3Type the job in Enter a task.
4. 4Choose Run in Chat; the run opens as a chat.

In Team › Agents, choose New automaton, give it a Name and a Brief, and choose Create automaton.

The brief says who it is and how it works; it reads it at the start of its conversation and again after you change it. Goal says what every run works toward, and Done when is what a scheduled run checks before it reports Done. Both are optional.

The model and effort start as Same as Work, the model and effort active in Work; pick others if you want. You can change them later from the top of its conversation.

1. 1Open Home › Team, then Agents.
2. 2Choose New automaton.
3. 3Type a Name, such as Release scout, and a Brief.
4. 4Optionally fill in Goal and Done when, and pick a model.
5. 5Choose Create automaton, or press ⌘↵. Esc cancels.

Each automaton page has one conversation: type in the box at the bottom and its answer lands there.

Enter sends and Shift+Enter adds a line. While a run is working, Enter tells it something it reads at its next step, and the square button stops the run.

Open in Chat opens the same conversation as a normal chat. Load earlier reads older messages. When a run asks for permission or a question, the card appears above the box: Allow once, Allow this session or Deny; Run once outside the sandbox or Keep it inside; or type in Your answer… and choose Answer.

A schedule sends the automaton a message every so many minutes, and the answer lands in its conversation.

Set Every (minutes) in whole minutes and Stop after (runs), where 0 keeps it running. For runs that came due while the Mac slept or Bandicot was closed, choose Skip them, or Catch up to run the last three it missed, oldest first, when Bandicot is back.

Each schedule row has its own switch and Run now. Choose a row to edit it, then Save changes or Done.

1. 1Open the automaton and, under Schedules, choose Add schedule.
2. 2Name it, such as Morning check, and write the Message each run sends.
3. 3Set Every (minutes) and Stop after (runs).
4. 4Choose Skip them or Catch up, then Add schedule.

The On switch at the top pauses or resumes all of an automaton's schedules, and each schedule's Run now starts one run at once.

While it is off, the page says it is paused and no schedule runs. To delete it, open the Brief card at the bottom of its page, choose Delete…, then Delete; Keep backs out. Its schedules go with it, and its conversation stays readable in Chat.

Last report says how the latest run ended, and Runs shows every run as a dot you can open.

A report reads Done, Blocked or Needs you, with Blocked by or It asks when there is one. If a run ended without saying whether the work is done, its conversation has what it did.

In Runs, choose a dot to see what that run reported, whether it ran On schedule or was Asked, how many tool rounds it used and its tokens in and out. Open conversation opens the full run. The line under the dots counts runs done and runs that need a look.

Turn on Keep working when Bandicot is closed, under the Automatons section, so the engine starts at login and schedules run with no window open.

It runs while this Mac is awake. A schedule due while it sleeps runs when it wakes, or, if one of your other Macs covers this one, that Mac runs it in the same project and hands it back on wake.

On a MacBook, Keep working with the lid closed sits just below it, as in Settings › Your phone.

A scheduled run works in its own copy of the folder, and its changes wait in Versions until you apply or discard them.

A notice says when a change is ready to review. See Review changes from automations.