Work that outlives a turn

Schedules

/schedule 30m check build runs later; /schedule every 30m check build repeats. One-shot and recurring schedules are journalled by the desktop process and recovered after a restart.

Goals

/goal <objective> sets a quiet, long-running intent that survives the chat that started it. /goal status, /goal pause, /goal resume, /goal clear manage it. The Active goal bar shows what is running; Clear goal ends it.

Plans and workers

• Plans — multi-step work that continues after a worker joins.
• Subagents — a chat can spawn a Workhorse worker for a slice, on any bot on the desk that can be called. Workers start together unless the caller asked to wait; the desk joins their reports.
• Each worker has lifecycle records, runtime and token ceilings, cascading cancellation, changed-file review, and worktree isolation where the project supports it.
• A worker gets a worker's context: the short worker rules and only the desk tools it may call — read and ask chats, one bounded helper, ask to raise a block, read skills and references. It cannot create, rename, move or delete anything on the desk.
• Nested workers show under their parent in the sidebar with the model and effort each ran on.

Routing

Your own chat keeps the model you picked until you set the provider to Auto — then the desk picks the bot and effort for each message. Work the desk hands out is routed on its own: when a chat spawns a worker without naming a bot, the desk picks the bot and effort for the slice; a named bot is used as named.

Settings → Routing tunes it, or turns it off:

• Route the work the desk hands out — Auto chats only, or Auto chats and spawned workers.
• Weekly reserve — hold back this much of each bot's week. A bot down to its reserve is skipped.
• Weigh leftover — score each bot by how far it is under its weekly pace.
• Prefer spare — favour whoever has the most left, not only avoid whoever is behind.
• Allow local models — a local bot may win. It costs nothing and never leaves this machine.
• Include harnesses — when Routing is on, OpenClaw and Hermes may be chosen after a grant. Off, only an explicit name starts one.
• Picks now previews the choice for short asks (rename, format, list, translate), most work, and heavy work (debug, refactor, review, research, long prompts with media).