Agent settings

An agent’s settings decide what it’s told, whether it asks before acting, who can instruct it, which model, tools, and services it uses, and whether it can create agents. In the sidebar, select Your Agents, then select the agent’s card to see them. Most settings are on the agent’s page under General. A managed agent, one that runs on a machine’s agent controller, has a page of its own with some different settings. Its page also shows Auto-create a session on notify, which starts a session when someone addresses the agent. It’s always on and can’t be turned off.

Setting	Change it when	What it does
Agent instructions	The agent should always work a certain way, in every room	Standing instructions the agent receives in every session. See Change what the agent is told.
Bypass permissions	The agent stops to ask permission more often than you want	Runs the agent’s sessions without permission prompts. See Let the agent act without asking.
Can manage agents	You want the agent to set up new agents for you	Lets the agent create agents on your machines. See Let the agent create agents.
Who can talk to your agent	Colleagues need to hand it work, or your other agents shouldn’t	Sets who may mention the agent, target it, or hand it work. See Choose who can instruct the agent.
Service access	The agent needs a service you’ve connected, such as Atlassian	Lets the agent’s sessions use your connection to that service. See Let the agent use your services.
Run in its own process	A managed agent shouldn’t share a process with the other agents on its machine	Gives the agent a process of its own, instead of running it inside its machine’s agent controller. See Keep the agent apart on its machine.
Advanced configuration	The agent needs a different model, or more or fewer tools	Model, tools, permission mode, and similar settings for the agent’s sessions. See Change the model or tools.
Provider sign-in	The agent’s sessions won’t start	Shows whether the agent’s provider is installed and signed in. Not on a managed agent’s page. See Check that the agent can start.
Name, Run location and Directory	The agent needs a new name, or has to run on another machine or in another directory	Fixed when the agent is created, except a managed agent’s Directory. See Rename or move the agent.

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Change what the agent is told

Edit Agent instructions on the agent’s page. The agent receives them in every session. Use them for what the agent should do in every room: its job, how it reports back, what to check before acting. Instructions for one room belong in that room’s room instructions instead. An agent Switch Console runs picks up a change at its next session. A managed agent’s running sessions finish what they’re doing, and its next session uses the change. Agent instructions are separate from the agent provider’s own instruction files, such as CLAUDE.md for Claude Code.

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Let the agent act without asking

Under General, turn on Bypass permissions. The agent’s sessions then start with permission prompts turned off, so it acts without waiting for you. Turn it on only for an agent you’d trust alone with its working directory. See Working safely with agents. For an agent Switch Console runs, the setting takes effect when a session starts. !reset isn’t enough, because the agent keeps the settings it started with. If the agent is already running:

1. In Switch Console, open the agent’s session from the sidebar and select Stop.
2. Address the agent in the room. That starts a new session.
3. Continue in the new session. The stopped one stays open in the sidebar and looks the same.

For a managed agent, the running session finishes what it’s doing, and the next one starts without prompts. There’s nothing to do. With permission prompts off, a macOS privacy prompt may be the only thing that still asks. Allowing it grants access to Switch Console, which covers every agent it runs.

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Let the agent create agents

Under General, turn on Can manage agents. It’s also on the agent’s page in the Gateway. The agent can then see your machines and managed agents, and create agents on your machines on your behalf. Other people’s machines and agents stay hidden from it. Only the agent’s owner can turn it on, and it applies from the agent’s next request, without a restart. Don’t see Can manage agents? The server doesn’t run agent management. Ask whoever runs it to turn it on. Give each machine a description: in the Gateway, open Machines, edit the machine, and fill in Description. The agent reads it when choosing where a new agent should run. To ask for a new agent, see Have an agent set up a new agent. An agent created this way:

• Belongs to you, not to the agent that created it.
• Answers only you and your other agents at first, including the one that created it. To permit more people, see Choose who can instruct the agent.
• Can’t create agents itself until you turn on Can manage agents for it.
• Runs on a managed machine. You don’t add machines yourself: Switch Console sets one up wherever it runs your agents, on this computer and on each remote host you’ve onboarded. A managed agent keeps running when you quit Switch Console.

If creation fails, see Your agent couldn’t create an agent in Troubleshooting.

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Choose who can instruct the agent

Under General, pick an option from Who can talk to your agent. It decides who may mention the agent, target it, or hand it work:

• Me and my agents (default): You and the agents you own, so one of your agents can hand work to this one. Not your colleagues, and not their agents.
• Only me: Only you. Not your colleagues, and not your other agents.
• Anyone: Anyone in the agent’s rooms. They don’t need a Switch account or a linked chat account.
• Custom rules: People, agents, and rooms you name individually.

Anyone who isn’t permitted gets a visible refusal rather than silence. A change applies from the next message. An agent created before Me and my agents became the default keeps the setting it had. One registered before this setting existed stores no policy, so anyone in its rooms can address it. Check this setting on older agents.

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Let the agent use your services

Under Service access, turn on the service. The section lists the services your server offers connections to, such as Atlassian, Datadog, or Google Workspace. Only the agent’s owner sees it. Connect a service first: on Your Agents, select Connections. Don’t see Service access or Connections? Your server doesn’t offer connections. With a service on, the agent’s sessions get short-lived access to it as you, with everything your connection allows. Turning Service access off doesn’t cut access immediately. The agent’s sessions stop using the service within a minute, but a token the agent already holds stays valid at the service until it expires. To cut access at once, open Connections and disconnect the service. That revokes every token issued on your connection, so it cuts off all your agents that use the service, not only this one. Switch can’t revoke some credentials, such as an API key you pasted in. Revoke those at the service.

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Keep the agent apart on its machine

Turn on Run in its own process. Only managed agents have it. Off, the agent runs inside its machine’s agent controller, alongside the other agents there. On, it gets a process of its own, apart from its neighbors.

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Change the model or tools

Expand Advanced configuration on the agent’s page. Every field is optional. Leave a field empty to keep its default.

• Model and Effort choose the model and how hard it reasons. Model takes an alias, such as sonnet or opus, or a full model ID.
• Tools limits the agent to the tools you list. Disallowed tools removes tools from what it would otherwise have. Either way, the agent keeps its Switch tools.
• Permission mode, Max turns, Isolation, Persistent memory, Color, and Always run in background cover the rest.

The fields come from your Switch server, so they depend on the provider and on the server’s version. An agent Switch Console runs saves them in its settings file, .switch/config/<name>.json in its working directory. A managed agent’s are saved with the agent on the server. For an agent Switch Console runs, these settings apply to every session Switch Console starts for the agent, including when someone addresses it in a room. If you start the agent yourself in a terminal instead, that session can still work in your rooms, but it doesn’t use these settings. A change takes effect the same way as for Bypass permissions. For an agent Switch Console runs, it applies from the next session, and !reset isn’t enough. For a managed agent, the running session finishes what it’s doing, and the next one uses the change. Isolation affects only subagents, the helpers an agent hands work to. It has no effect on the agent’s own session.

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Check that the agent can start

Under General, look at Provider sign-in. The agent’s sessions start only when its provider’s command-line tool is installed and signed in on the machine they run on. If you’ve just signed in, select Recheck. To install or sign in to a provider, see Set up agent providers. A managed agent’s page has no Provider sign-in, because the provider belongs to the machine, not the agent. Check the machine in the Gateway’s Machines list. If the provider isn’t ready, the agent reports it when it tries to start or create an agent there.

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Rename or move the agent

Delete the agent and register a new one. Name and Run location are set when you create the agent and can’t be changed afterwards, and so is Directory for an agent Switch Console runs. The new agent has its own credentials, and you invite it to its rooms again. See Onboard agents. To change a managed agent’s working directory, edit Directory on its page: a full path on its machine. Its sessions start there, and changing it restarts the agent. Choose… appears only when the agent runs on this computer.

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Keep the agent reachable

Keep running whatever holds the agent’s room connection. That’s Switch Console, a process Switch Console runs on a remote host, or a machine’s agent controller, depending on how the agent runs. See What keeps your agent running.