Running a program

This guide takes a program from an empty page to its final phase. For what programs, phases, activities and checkpoints are, read Programs first.

Before you start

• Have at least one workflow, agent or team the program can assign work to. People in your project can also own activities.
• Attach any knowledge bases you want every run to use — create them first under Resources → Knowledge.
• If your organisation's subscription has lapsed, the app is read-only and New program, Run phase and the other write actions are disabled.

1. Create the program

1. Go to Build → Programs and select New program (or press N).
2. The editor opens with the Plan pane on the left and the Program Assistant on the right. On a narrow screen they are two tabs, Plan and Assistant.
3. Either describe what you want to achieve to the Program Assistant and let it draft the plan (see The Program Assistant), or fill the plan in yourself:
   1. Enter the program name and a Brief describing the goal. Add tags if you use them (press Enter or a comma after each).
   2. Optionally choose a Program manager agent.
   3. Under Access, select each part of the sentence (for example All agents) to choose All, None or Only these for agents, teams and workflows.
   4. Under Knowledge, use Attach knowledge base to add knowledge bases for every run.
   5. Select Add Phase for each phase. Give it a Phase name, choose Completion mode and whether Activities run Sequentially or In parallel.
   6. In each phase select Add Activity and configure it — see Working with program activities.
4. Watch the readiness checklist at the top: Goal, Plan, Access, Review. Hover over it to see what is missing.
   • Goal — the program has a real name (not "Untitled Program") and a brief.
   • Plan — there is at least one phase, every phase has at least one activity, and every activity has an assignee.
   • Access — no activity is assigned to a kind of executor the program's access no longer allows.
5. Select Create and start Phase 1 to create the program and run its first phase straight away, or Create program to create it without running anything. Create and start Phase 1 appears when the first phase has at least one activity that isn't assigned to a person.

Everything you type saves as you go — phases and activities are created the moment you add them. Activities without acceptance criteria are allowed, but their runs won't be verified.

warning

The program is a draft until you select Create program or Create and start Phase 1. Leaving the editor before then — with the back arrow, Save as draft, or by navigating away — discards the draft. ⋯ → Discard draft discards it deliberately.

note

Text typed into the editor's Context box is not currently saved. To add business context, use Add note on the program's Knowledge tab after you create the program, or ask the Program Assistant to add it.

2. Find your way around the program page

Select a program in the list to open it. The page has:

• Header — the program name and its health pill (hover over Needs you to see why), then the number of phases and activities, when it started, the last activity, the Manager, and the program's cost so far.
• Run phase and Pause this phase / Resume this phase for the selected phase, and a ⋯ menu with Edit program and Advance to next phase.
• Phase strip — one block per phase showing how many activities are done and a bar coloured by state (Done, Needs you, Running, Ready, Waiting). Select a phase to view it. The page opens on the active phase.
• Tabs — Activities, Knowledge, Documents (n) and Activity log.

On the Activities tab, the phase heading shows the phase's mode chips and how many of its activities are done. The table lists each activity's Key, Activity, Agent, Deliverable, Verified and Finished, grouped by state. Use Filter activities (or press /) to filter by name, and Group: Status to group by Status, Assignee or None. Select a row (or press Enter) to open the activity inspector on the right.

An activity's key is the ticket key at the start of its name (for example FYAI-514) or, failing that, its position in the phase (A1, A2 …).

The page updates live as work moves.

3. Run a phase

1. Select the phase in the phase strip.
2. Select Run phase.

The platform queues every activity in the phase that is eligible and dispatches what is ready:

• Activities assigned to a person, paused, blocked waiting on an answer, or already done under the Once run policy are skipped.
• A sequential phase runs one activity at a time; a parallel phase starts every ready activity at once.
• Activities that depend on others start as their dependencies succeed.

Run phase is disabled, with a tooltip saying why, when the phase is paused, the program is paused, or nothing in the phase is ready to run. The platform also refuses to run a phase while it, or any earlier phase, has a checkpoint waiting for a decision.

To run one activity on its own, open it and select Run now (or press R).

4. Deal with what needs you

Anything that needs a person appears in three places: the program's health pill reads Needs you, the activity sits in the Needs you group, and the item appears in the Attention queue on the Programs list.

The Attention queue (shown on wide screens) lists every open item across all programs, most urgent first: approvals, then questions, verification failures, failed runs, and lost runs. Each card has a button — Approve, Answer, Review, Retry or Investigate — that opens the program at the right place. On narrower screens the list header shows the count as n need attention.

State	What to do
Needs approval	Open any activity in the phase and select Approve or Reject (see step 5).
Needs answer	Read the agent's question, type Your answer, and select Answer and resume to run the activity again with your answer, or Clear without resuming to clear the block and leave the activity for the next phase run.
Failed	Read the explanation and choose a recovery action such as Retry or Retry on a larger-context model.
Verification failed	Re-verify, Accept anyway with a note, or Re-run with guidance.
Lost contact	Retry, or Mark failed to close the run out.

Each state is covered in detail in Working with program activities.

5. Approve or reject a checkpoint

When a phase with Checkpoint completion finishes its activities, its checkpoint is raised and every activity in the phase shows Needs approval.

1. Open any activity in the phase. The inspector shows the checkpoint's name with Approve and Reject buttons. (The Approve button on an Attention queue card opens the right phase for you.)
2. Select Approve or Reject. A note field opens — optional for approval, required for rejection.
3. Select Confirm Approve or Confirm Reject.

Approving completes the phase and makes the next phase active (or, if work was still queued behind the checkpoint, releases that work). Rejecting pauses the phase; select Resume this phase once the problem is fixed, then run it again.

6. Move to the next phase

How a phase finishes depends on its Completion mode:

• Auto — the next phase becomes active on its own when every activity has finished.
• Checkpoint — the next phase becomes active when the checkpoint is approved.
• Manual — open ⋯ and select Advance to next phase. This marks the selected phase completed and makes the next pending phase active.

In every case, select the new phase and choose Run phase to start it.

7. Add knowledge and documents as you go

• Knowledge tab — type a note and select Add note. Notes are labelled with your username and are included in the context of every later run. Entries added by the Program Assistant or by activities are labelled with their source; an activity source links to that activity.
• Documents tab — select Add document and fill in Title, Type, Summary, Source URL and Content. Turn on Pinned or Inject into runs to include the document in every run's context. Both switches can also be toggled directly in the table. Use the row icons to edit or delete a document.

8. Review the activity log

The Activity log tab lists every event on the program, newest first, with its time, actor, event, subject and detail. Filter it with All, Runs, Verification, Human actions, Phases and checkpoints or Knowledge, and select Load more to page back. Select an activity or phase in the Subject column to jump to it.

Edit a running program

Open ⋯ → Edit program. The editor is the same as for a new program, without the readiness checklist; changes save as you make them and Changes apply to the running program. Select Done to return.

You can also edit a single activity from the program page: open it, expand Details, change what you need and select Save changes.

Keyboard shortcuts

Where	Key	Action
Programs list	/	Search programs
Programs list	J / K or arrow keys	Move the selection
Programs list	Enter	Open the selected program
Programs list	N	New program
Program page	/	Focus the activity filter
Program page	J / K or arrow keys	Move between activities
Program page	Enter / Esc	Open / close the inspector
Program page	R, S, G, V, A	Run or retry, split, retry with guidance, re-verify, accept anyway (when the inspector offers them)
Program page	?	Show all shortcuts

What isn't in the app yet

Pausing or resuming a whole program, archiving it and deleting it appear in the ⋯ menu as Coming soon. You can do all three through the Platform API or the Platform MCP server — set the program's status to paused, active or archived, or delete it.

Related

• Programs
• Working with program activities
• The Program Assistant
• Missions