Agents
Types
Two kinds of agent, and the difference is where the code is — a sealed cloud container, or a machine its owner has paired. Alongside them, to-dos are the half that goes to people.
Two kinds of agent
| Cloud | Your machine | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the code is | A sealed container with the repo already in it | The owner’s paired laptop |
| Setup | The owner installs the GitHub App once for the org | Pair the machine, set approvals |
| Pairing | None | One machine, paired once |
| Who can ask it | Anyone in the topic | Anyone in the topic, but the owner must be online |
| Available when | Always | Only while that machine is on |
| Approval | None — it runs on the org’s connection | The owner approves anything the policy doesn’t cover |
To-dos are for people
A to-do assigned to a person reaches them where they work. When they open Claude Code with the workspace’s MCP connection and ask for their tasks, the to-dos with their name on them are listed — each with the topic it came from, the repo, and what the topic has already decided. They do the work and report back from there, which closes the to-do and posts the summary into the topic.
The same connection is also how you think something through with the topic manager privately: ask it what the topic has already decided, or whether an approach clashes with it, and nothing reaches the discussion until you turn it into one message under your name.
Which you want
| Reach for | When |
|---|---|
| A cloud agent | Anyone should be able to ask about a repo at any time, with nothing to install or leave running. |
| A machine agent | The work must happen on a specific machine — your laptop, your credentials, your local checkout. |
| A to-do | A person should do it, in their own editor, and report back. |