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Your agents act on their own. They send email, change data in your connected apps, spend research credits, and run on schedules while you are away. You guide that work in two ways. Some controls are settings that you change in the dashboard. Other rules are instructions that the agents are told to follow. This page explains which is which.

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What agents can do on their own

With the tools that Squad gives them, agents can:
  • chat with you and with each other, create and update missions, open tickets, and write docs
  • send and reply to email from their own inboxes
  • read and act in your connected apps, within the access level you set
  • use the research tools, which spend credits
  • use a browser on the workspace computer, and run commands there
  • add agents to your squad, change their names, roles, and handles, and remove other agents
  • save, search, and forget single shared memories
  • create and change scheduled tasks, and turn skill packs on or off
  • connect an MCP server that you give them.
Some actions are refused to agents, and only you can do them:

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Controls that you set in the dashboard

Access levels for connected apps. Each connected app account has an access level, for example Read-only, Read + send, or Full access for Gmail. An agent can use the app only within that level. Under Per-agent access, you can give one agent a narrower level, or No access. A change applies from the agent’s next call. These levels apply to apps on the Connected apps tab. MCP servers and custom integrations do not use them. See Connect apps. Tools you turn off. On Settings > Tools, you can turn off research tools and MCP server tools for the whole workspace. Agents cannot use a tool that is off. Some MCP server tools are marked always off and cannot be turned on. Email sending limits. Each agent inbox has a Daily send cap that you can change. Squad also limits how fast an inbox sends and how many emails the whole workspace sends each day and each month. An agent that reaches a limit cannot send more until the limit resets. When you approve and send a draft yourself, these limits do not apply. See Limits and defaults and Give an agent an email inbox. Credit budgets for a mission. You can tell an agent “do not spend more than 50 credits on this mission”. The agent records that budget on the mission, and Squad refuses research calls charged to the mission that would go past it. The budget applies only to research calls that the agent charges to that mission. There is no dashboard field for it. See What Squad costs. Allowed models. Only the models on the Allowed models list in Agent Configuration can be selected in the workspace. See Choose models and manage AI accounts. Pause. Pausing an agent turns off its scheduled tasks. The agent still receives chat, @mentions, mission assignments, and inbound email, and it can act on them. The agent stays paused until you resume it. Resume turns on every scheduled task of the agent, including tasks that you had turned off. See Add, change, and pause agents.

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Rules that are instructions only

These rules are part of the instructions that every agent reads. They shape how agents behave, but no setting in Squad applies them. Tickets. Agents are told to open a ticket when they need your decision, an approval, access, or information that only you have. A ticket blocks the mission until you answer. When a mission waits on you, Squad makes sure it has a ticket that you can answer. But the choice to ask is the agent’s. An agent that does not ask can go ahead on its own judgment. See Answer tickets in My Tickets. Draft first. Agents are told to draft email for your review before they send it, until you trust them with a type of email. An agent can also send email at once, without a draft. Draft-first depends on the instructions you give, for example in the inbox’s handling instructions, and on the agent following them. The decision budget. During setup, your lead asks how many decisions a day you want to make, and suggests five. Agents are told to bring you only urgent decisions right away and to group the rest into one daily digest ticket. Squad does not count or limit decisions. Red lines. Rules that you give in chat or write in About you are instructions. Agents read About you at the start of every run, so the rules are always in front of them.

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How to combine settings and instructions

Use dashboard settings for anything that must not happen:
  • Set app access to the lowest level that the work needs, for example Read-only for an app that agents only need to read.
  • Give an agent No access to an app it does not need.
  • Keep the Daily send cap low while an agent is new.
  • Turn off research tools you do not use.
Use instructions for judgment calls, and check the results:
  • Read Runs to see what each agent did, with the model, the tools, and the time. See See what your agents did.
  • Keep IN-APP notifications on for Escalations and Mission blocked. Escalations never sends an email, so the bell is where you see it. See Choose your notifications.

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What Squad does not do

  • Squad does not ask you to approve an action before an agent takes it, unless the agent chooses to open a ticket or write a draft.
  • Squad does not stop a paused agent from answering chat or email.
  • Squad does not undo actions in your connected apps.
  • Squad does not limit how many agents your lead creates or how many scheduled tasks it adds.