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Conductor is the workspace’s agent. Ask it anything about your issues, sessions and Knowledge, or hand it work in a sentence, on the web, in the desktop app, or in the terminal under orchestra (the Conductor view, ctrl+g from home). Nothing changes until you apply it.

Put an agent on an issue

Say where, with what, and on which model, as you would to a teammate:
Conductor answers with a card. What you named is what the card opens on, and you can change any of it before you apply:
  • Where: this computer, another of your machines, or the cloud. Orchestra Local has no cloud, and runs on your own machine with your own login.
  • Repository: the one the issue’s sessions last committed to, or the only one that place can use. If several fit, the card asks you to pick.
  • Agent, model and effort: what that place can really run.
  • Review the plan first: on by default.
  • Prompt: the brief the agent starts with, which you can edit. It carries the issue, what the workspace has concluded about it, and any work in flight it could collide with. It tells the agent to follow the rules in .orchestra/standards/.
If something you named cannot run (the machine is offline, the agent is not installed, the model is not offered), the card says so and what can run instead. Apply stays off, with the reason beside it, until the card can really start. The first run of a repository and agent on a machine asks you to approve it once, in a dialog on that machine.

Choose a permission mode

On a machine, the card has a Mode chooser, and each mode says what it does. Left alone, the run uses the mode set for that repository and agent on the machine. New repositories start in Auto for Claude Code and the Orchestra agent: the agent works on its own, and a safety check stops risky actions. Other agents list their own modes. Change a repository’s default in the desktop app under Settings, This machine. If Auto is not available (an older model, or your organization turned it off), the run uses Accept edits instead and says so on the card and in the session. Skip permissions removes the agent’s own safety checks. It sits behind a warning, it is never a default, and your machine asks you to confirm it for that one run. Cloud runs stay in their sandbox and have no mode to choose.

Review the plan

With plan review on, the agent reads the repository and writes a plan first. The plan appears in the thread and in the session, with Approve, Request changes (what you type goes back to the agent, and it plans again) and Cancel. What holds an agent to that depends on the agent: An approved plan continues in the mode you chose.

Describe new work

Describe it in a sentence and Conductor proposes an issue with Background, Scope, Where and Done when. Apply it, then put an agent on it.

Ask what is true now

Conductor starts each question already knowing your urgent issues, what is in flight, what merged and what your team has committed to, all read with your own access. With a repository connected, it can also read pull requests, CI, releases and code. It checks what people wrote against what actually shipped. If an issue says In Progress but its pull request merged, Conductor tells you. If it cannot check something, it says how old the claim is. Ask what to do next and it leads with what blocks the goal, then gives an ordered list with an owner and a reason for each item. These answers use a stronger model, and Conductor shows the most the answer may cost before it starts. On a hosted workspace, “connected” means connected to your workspace, so Conductor can read a connected repository for anyone in it. On Orchestra Local it reads the repositories you enabled on your machine.

Coming back

The thread follows the run: its status, its questions, its plan, its final report and any pull request it opened. Answer a question or tell the agent something from the thread, or open the session. A new conversation opens with what needs you, what is in flight, and what changed, each linked to its session.