Chapter 13 of 15

Leaving the Desk

Freddy's goal is running, the checks are set, and it is five o'clock. He would like to go home. This chapter is the honest answer to what happens when he does, and how to make the agents' need for him reach him instead of waiting in a window.

The problem

Everything in the earlier chapters assumes you are at the machine. A long task is not. You leave, the agent keeps going, and one of three things is true when you come back: it finished, it failed, or it stopped half an hour in to ask you something. The first is a pleasant surprise. The other two are lost time, and the only difference between them and the first is that nobody told you.

The hard way

Check the machine. Or leave a terminal with the agent running in a tmux session and a message-to-self for when it is done. In practice you stay near the window because you cannot trust that the agent's question will find you.

Closing the window, and quitting

Agents run inside Elyra Workspace, so they stop when it quits. That is the fact the rest of this section is about.

  • Closing the window keeps the agents working. Click Elyra Workspace in the Dock to bring it back.
  • ⌘Q asks first when an agent is working:
    • Quit when they finish: the window is hidden and Workspace quits by itself once no agent is working. If one needs your input meanwhile, you get a notification; coming back to the window calls the quit off. No new Félagi tasks or automation runs start while it waits (missed runs are caught up at the next launch).
    • Quit now stops them.

Quit when they finish is the one for going home. The app quits behind you when the work is done, so you do not leave a window open all night for the sake of one agent.

A closed window is not a stopped app, and a stopped app is not a paused agent. If Workspace is not running, nothing is working, and automations (chapter 12) do not start. Close the window if you want the agents to carry on; quit only when you mean it.

When a turn was interrupted

If Workspace quit while a turn was running, or crashed, the thread shows The last turn was interrupted when the app quit with Resume and Dismiss. At launch, a notification offers to continue every interrupted turn at once.

A resumed turn does not start from the top. It first asks the agent to check what already happened, so that nothing is done twice. A half-finished rename is the case it is for: the agent looks at what the folder is like now before it continues.

While you were away

Back at the window after ten minutes or more, a summary shows what the threads did meanwhile:

  • what needs you: an approval, a question, a proposed rule or automation;
  • what failed: the turn, the checks, a journey;
  • what finished;
  • what is still working;

each with a line about it and what it cost. Click a row to open the thread. While you were away… in the command palette shows it again. This is the page you want in the morning: one list, sorted by whether it needs you, and the cost of the night in the same place.

On your phone

The summary is for when you are back. The phone is for when you are not. Turn on Settings → General → Phone to get a push through ntfy when a thread needs you or finishes while Workspace is not the active app, for every thread, also those an automation or Félagi started. Install the ntfy app and subscribe to the topic shown there; Send a test push checks it. It is off by default.

  • An approval has Allow, Always and Deny buttons; a yes/no question Yes and No; a question with up to three options a button each. The answer goes straight to the agent.
  • To answer in your own words, publish to the topic followed by -reply (in the ntfy app: subscribe to it too, and publish there). The text answers the open question, or goes to the last thread as a message.

Freddy leaves a goal running and walks home. On the way a push says the agent has a question with two options; he taps one. A second says the thread finished, and because of chapter 9, that means the checks passed.

Think about who can read the topic. Pushes and answers go through the ntfy server, so the Mac needs no incoming connection. They pass through that server, though: use your own for privacy. Anyone who knows the topic can read the pushes and answer them, so keep it private. Workspace makes it for you when you turn the feature on, as a long random name, and the ntfy server and topic are in Settings → General → Phone. And remember what a phone answer can do: Allow and Always on an approval card are the same decision they are at the desk (chapter 4).
Try it: turn on Phone, press Send a test push, and then start a thread in Ask for approval mode with a task that needs a command. Switch to another app, and answer the approval from the phone. Then quit with Quit when they finish and see that the app goes away by itself.

What you learned

  • That agents run inside the app: closing the window keeps them going, quitting does not
  • What Quit when they finish does, and what an interrupted turn offers when you come back
  • That a resumed turn first checks what was already done
  • What the while-you-were-away summary lists
  • How to approve and answer from a phone, and why the topic should stay private
Next: in Chapter 14 you let agents steer other agents, and connect other tools to the workspace.