# Agents > What an Orbital agent is, how the Agents page is laid out, what an agent may do on its own, what it asks you for, and where its runs and results go. Source: https://orbitalaip.com/docs/agents/overview ## What an agent is An agent is a saved worker in your project. It has **Instructions**, a **Model**, a set of tools, permissions, and a conversation of its own. You talk to it in that conversation. Each reply is a run: the agent reads your message, calls tools until it has an answer, and writes the answer back. A new agent has **Use all available tools** on, which gives it the workflow nodes as tools, market data included. **Web search** is on, and **Code Interpreter** is off until you turn it on. Switch tools off in its settings to hold it back. ## The Agents page Open **Agents** in the sidebar. The left pane lists your agents and channels. Open conversations show as tabs on the right; drag a row from the list onto them to see up to four at once. **New agent** creates an agent at once and starts a setup interview in its conversation. See [Set up an agent](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/agents/set-up-an-agent). The list has two filters, **All** and **Archived**, and groups its rows: - **Channels**: shared conversations, with their member avatars. - **Needs you**: agents waiting for your answer. The badge counts the approvals waiting. - **Working**: agents with a run in progress or a task under way. - **Watching**: agents waiting on a signal. - **Recent**: everything else, latest activity first. Hover a row and click ⋮ for **Open**, **Settings**, **Appearance**, **Archive** and **Delete**. A channel row's menu has **Open**, **Archive** and **Delete**. ## The conversation Type in the composer and press **Send message**. **Stop response** (■) stops the reply while the agent is answering, and **Show work** under a reply opens the run behind it. A run can also start from a schedule, a signal the agent watches, a workflow's **Agent** node, another agent, a task or a channel. Every run lands in the agent's conversation. One that is not a reply to you appears as a card with a status such as **Finished**, **Working**, **Stopped** or **Didn’t finish**. Expand it to read **INPUT**, **PLANNING**, **WORK** (each tool call), **EVIDENCE** (the sources it cited) and **OUTPUT**. A card that is still working has **Stop**. When a run files a document, the **OUTPUT** section shows it with **Open** and **Add to Library**. Its **More** (⋯) menu holds **Download Markdown**, **Download JSON**, **Download CSV** for tables, and **Add to a board** for a dashboard. Beside the composer you can **Attach images and documents**, open **Automations for** the agent, or **Give** the agent **a task**. A task is a goal it keeps working at across runs until it says it is done, gets stuck or uses its budget. See [Tasks](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/agents/tasks) and [Automations](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/agents/automations). Notifications tell you when a run you started fails, when an unattended agent waits on your approval, and when a task finishes or needs you. See [Notifications](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/alerts-and-notifications/notifications). ## What it can do on its own Within its tools, an agent reads data, searches the web, changes watchlists and sends alerts to the person who created it. It creates workflows, edits the drafts it made, builds programs, and reads strategies, backtests and deployments. It can also create draft agents, add schedules that stay off until you turn them on in **Automations**, and hand a task to another agent. Every run is bounded by the agent's **Step limit**, 100 unless set, and its **Spend cap** in [credits](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#credits). See [Memory and limits](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/agents/set-up-an-agent#memory-and-limits). Each run's backtests, program builds, new workflows, workflow edits and deployment changes are capped, and so are the backtests an agent starts on its own each day. See [What an agent can do](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/agents/strategy-work#what-an-agent-can-do). With **Make trading decisions** set, in any mode, an agent keeps only read tools such as prices, news and watchlists, and a task it is working on pauses. See [Make trading decisions](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/agents/permissions-and-approvals#make-trading-decisions). ## What it must ask for **Build and test strategies**, **Make main**, **Make trading decisions** and **Supervise deployments** decide what an agent may spend or change unasked, and only workspace owners and admins set them. See [The four permissions](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/agents/permissions-and-approvals#the-four-permissions). Under **Ask**, the act waits in the conversation as a **Waiting for you** card for up to seven days, and the agent moves to **Needs you**. Approving a deployment change needs a workspace owner or admin. See [answering a request](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/agents/permissions-and-approvals#answer-a-held-action). A trade under **Ask** waits for review in Trade instead. See [Approvals and permissions](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/trade/approvals-and-permissions). No agent action deploys a strategy to Trade or retires one; a person does that. ## Agents, Chat, Workflows and strategies Chat is a conversation with Orbital, and it can create, edit, run and schedule agents for you. It can also propose **Build and test strategies** for a workspace owner or admin to apply; the other permissions are set in **Agent settings**. See [Chat](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/chat/overview) and [Give a permission from Chat](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/agents/permissions-and-approvals#give-a-permission-from-chat). Workflows run a graph; agents run a loop. A workflow calls an agent through its **Agent** node, and an agent can create workflows. See [Workflows](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/workflows/overview). An agent can write a [strategy](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#strategy) as [rule cards](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#rule-cards) or a [program](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#program), run [backtests](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#backtest) and read the results. It can copy a deployed [version](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#version) into a new draft, and make a version [main](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#main) when **Make main** allows it. See [Agents and strategies](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/agents/strategy-work). ## Channels The **#** button (**Create new channel**) creates a channel of up to eight agents. A plain message reaches every member, and a lead, when the channel has one, sums up their answers. See [Create a channel](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/agents/teams#create-a-channel).