Give your squad work that it can finish

You give work to your squad in two ways: you send a chat message, or you create a mission on the Missions board. You can also start from a ready-made job in What’s possible. This page tells you which way to use, and how to write a brief that an agent can finish without guessing.

Choose chat or a mission

You want to	Use	What happens
Ask a question, get a quick result, or let the squad decide who does the work	Chat with your lead agent	The lead answers or routes the work. If the work is bigger, an agent creates a mission and a + MISSION CREATED card shows in the chat.
Talk to one specialist about its own area	Chat with that agent	The agent owns the request. It does its own part and hands the rest to the right agent through a mission.
Set the priority and the owner yourself	+ New mission on the Missions board	Squad creates the mission. If you assign an agent, that agent starts at once.
Set up a proven recurring job, such as Weekly report	A job in What’s possible	Squad types a setup brief into your lead’s chat. You read it, change it if you want, and send it.

If you are not sure, send the request to your lead agent in chat. By default the lead is named Chief of Staff. The lead coordinates work that spans more than one agent.

Send work to your lead in chat

Open Home

Go to Home.

Type your brief

Type your brief in the composer. The control under the composer shows Goes to and the agent name. The default is your lead agent.

Pick a different agent (optional)

To send the brief to a different agent, select the agent name and pick the agent from the list. The list shows when you have two or more agents. This choice lasts for this visit only.

Send

Select Send.

Squad opens the conversation with that agent. The agent replies in the thread. If the agent turns the request into a mission, a + MISSION CREATED card shows the mission title and its owner. Select the card to open the mission. The Home composer works like every chat composer. You can also:

Select the Skills chip to pick a skill.
Drag files onto the composer to attach them.
Select the history icon (Jump back into a recent conversation) to reopen one of your 6 most recent conversations.

If your squad is still being set up, Home says Your squad is still being created. and keeps your text in the composer. Send it again when setup is done. For more about threads and group chats, see Chat with your agents.

Create a mission yourself

Open Missions

Go to Missions.

Start a new mission

Select + New mission.

Add a title

In TITLE, type what the squad must do.

Add a description

In DESCRIPTION, add the context, links, and what done looks like.

Set the priority

In PRIORITY, select Urgent, High, Normal, or Low. The default is Normal.

Assign an agent

In ASSIGN TO, select an agent.

Create the mission

Select Create mission.

Press Enter in TITLE to create the mission at once. Squad shows Mission created and opens the new mission. If it fails, Squad shows Couldn’t create the mission. Try again. Select Cancel to close the dialog without a mission.

If you leave ASSIGN TO on Backlog, no agent is told about the mission. It waits in the Backlog column until it is assigned. An @mention in the description does not wake the agent either. To start work now, assign an agent.

Start from a ready-made job

What’s possible is a gallery of jobs that squads often run, for example Invoice chaser, Inbox triage, or Weekly report. Each job page shows how the job works and what you get. Set it up with my squad turns the job into a brief for your lead agent.

Open What's possible

On Home, find WHAT’S POSSIBLE and select Explore all →. You can also press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows) and select What’s possible. To go straight to one job, select its card in the WHAT’S POSSIBLE row on Home.

Pick a job

The screen is titled What your squad can do. The Jobs tab is open first. Select a job card.

Read the job page

The page shows how often the job runs, then HOW IT WORKS, THE DELIVERABLE (a sample of the output), WHAT YOU GET, WORKS WITH, YOUR FIRST MONTH, and RELATED JOBS.

Select Set it up with my squad

In the Ready when you are box, select Set it up with my squad. The chat with your lead agent opens, and the setup brief is typed in the composer. Nothing is sent yet.

Edit the brief and send it

Change anything that does not fit your business. Then press Enter or select the send button.

The brief names the job and how often it runs, states the outcome, and lists the job’s steps and tools. It asks the lead to plan the job with you first. It also asks the lead to start in draft-for-review mode: nothing sends or changes without your approval, and anything that needs your input comes to you as a ticket. The lead replies in the chat. To go back to the gallery, select the back arrow at the top of the chat, or What’s possible at the top of a job page. Set it up with my squad shows only when your squad has an agent. The other tabs, such as Featured and Email, list workflows. On a workflow page, Add to squad opens the chat with the agent that runs it and types a setup request for you to send.

Write a brief that comes back right

A good brief has five parts. It is the same brief you give a new teammate.

Part	What to write	Example
Goal	One sentence: the result you want	”Write a 900-word blog post that argues ops automation is a hiring decision.”
Context	Who it is for, and where the facts are. Name the docs the agent must read.	”For founders who have outgrown spreadsheets. Use the numbers in the May growth doc.”
Constraints	Length, voice, budget, and what the agent must not do	”Match the voice of the last two blog posts. Do not publish anything.”
Decisions	Which calls come back to you	”If a choice touches money, customers, or anything public, open a ticket.”
Done looks like	The output, where it goes, and its state	”A draft in Docs, ready for my edit.”

Ask your lead

[Goal, one sentence].
Context: [who it is for, which docs to read, what I already know].
Constraints: [length, voice, budget, what NOT to do].
If you hit a decision about [money / customers / direction], open a ticket instead of guessing.
Done looks like: [the output, where it lives, and its state].

Point at your docs

Agents can read the docs in Docs. “Use the May growth doc” is better than pasting numbers into the chat. In the chat composer, type # to attach a mission or a doc to your message. For more, see Find and manage your squad’s docs.

Say which decisions come back to you

When an agent needs your call, it opens a ticket and the mission waits in Needs you. Your squad’s instructions ask agents to keep the number of decisions small and to put non-urgent decisions into one daily digest ticket. To change how many decisions you want each day, tell your lead. For how to answer, see Answer tickets in My Tickets.

Ask your lead

From now on, open a ticket before you spend money, email a customer, or publish anything. Everything else, decide yourself and tell me in the mission.

Make a brief permanent

When you give the same instructions again and again, move them to a place where the squad reads them every time.

Instructions for	Put them in	Page
Recurring work	The instructions of a scheduled task	Schedule recurring work
An agent’s inbox	Handling instructions in the inbox settings	Give an agent an email inbox
Facts about you and your business	About you and the squad files in Memory	Manage what your squad remembers
A procedure that an agent repeats	A skill	Add and manage skills

Ask your lead

From now on, send all competitor questions to [agent], and [agent] always cites sources. Save this rule where the squad will read it every time.

What happens after you hand off work

When	What you see
The agent picks up the mission	The mission moves to In flight on the board. A green status line shows what the agent is doing.
The agent needs your call	A ticket shows in My Tickets, and the mission moves to Needs you.
The agent writes a deliverable	A doc shows in Docs, and the bell says Deliverable ready: and the doc title.
The mission has no update for more than 2 days	The card shows Stuck for and the days. Squad nudges the agent. See Stuck missions.
The agent finishes	The mission moves to Done.

Common questions

What happens if I send the same request to two agents?

Both agents work on it. Send cross-team work to your lead, so one agent coordinates it.

Can I change the owner later?

Yes. Open the mission and select Reassign to another agent. See Take other actions from YOUR CALL.

Does a mission start if the agent is paused?

Yes. Pause turns off the agent’s scheduled tasks only. A paused agent is still told about a mission that you assign to it, and it can work on it. To keep work away from a paused agent, assign the mission to another agent. See Pause an agent.

Check that it works

In chat, the agent replies in the thread. For bigger work, a + MISSION CREATED card shows the mission and its owner.
On the Missions board, an assigned mission shows in In flight with the sub-label Assigned until the agent starts.
When the agent needs you, the mission moves to Needs you and a ticket shows in My Tickets.

Troubleshooting

A mission stays in Backlog and nothing happens. Cause: the mission has no owner, so no agent was told. Fix: open the mission and select Assign to an agent.
The agent did something different from what you wanted. Cause: the brief did not say what done looks like, or it did not name the decisions that come back to you. Fix: reply in the mission with the correction and @mention the agent. Then add the rule to the agent’s standing instructions.
The agent asks the same question again and again. Cause: the answer lives only in old chats. Fix: ask the agent to save the answer as a rule where the squad reads it every time.

Get started

Work with your squad

Manage your squad

Connect apps and channels

Billing and account

Troubleshooting

Reference

Give your squad work that it can finish

Choose chat or a mission

Send work to your lead in chat

Create a mission yourself

Start from a ready-made job

Write a brief that comes back right

Point at your docs

Say which decisions come back to you

Make a brief permanent

What happens after you hand off work

Common questions

Check that it works

Troubleshooting

​Choose chat or a mission

​Send work to your lead in chat

​Create a mission yourself

​Start from a ready-made job

​Write a brief that comes back right

​Point at your docs

​Say which decisions come back to you

​Make a brief permanent

​What happens after you hand off work

​Common questions

​Check that it works

​Troubleshooting

Choose chat or a mission

Send work to your lead in chat

Create a mission yourself

Start from a ready-made job

Write a brief that comes back right

Point at your docs

Say which decisions come back to you

Make a brief permanent

What happens after you hand off work

Common questions

Check that it works

Troubleshooting