# Working with goals

What a goal is, the Goals home, moving around inside a goal, who can see it, and how to pause or delete it.

Canonical page: https://app.auto-lab.ai/docs/goals

A goal is one outcome you want Auto Lab to work toward over weeks, such as "find 10 qualified leads a week".
Each goal has its own agent, its own weekly plan and its own Chat. This page shows how to find your goals,
move around inside one, share it, pause it and delete it.

## What a goal is

A goal belongs to one organization. Everything it knows lives in its own private git repository: its
instructions, memory, skills, plan and settings. That is why every change to a goal has an author and a
history, and why a change can be reviewed before it lands.

You choose where that repository lives when you create the goal:

| Repository | What happens |
|---|---|
| **Auto Lab managed** (default) | Auto Lab creates and hosts a private repository for the goal, on the `main` branch. Nothing to set up. |
| **Create in GitHub** | Auto Lab creates a private repository in a GitHub account connected to your organization. |
| **Import from GitHub** | The goal uses a repository that already exists in that GitHub account. |

The two GitHub options sit behind **Have code already? Import a GitHub repository** on the first setup page.

Keep the repository about the goal. Each session the agent opens works from a copy of it, so large files slow
every start. Your product's code can stay where it is: name the repository during setup and the agent connects
to it through GitHub like any other tool. Developers can read more in
[The goal's repository](/docs/developers/repository).

## The Goals home

**Goals** lists every goal you can open, under three headings:

| Heading | A goal sits here when |
|---|---|
| **Needs you** | A decision waits for a person, or the goal stopped for today because it reached a daily limit. |
| **In progress** | Nothing waits on you and its triggers are running. |
| **Paused** | Its triggers are paused and nothing waits on you. |

Inside each heading, goals with decisions waiting come first, then goals that slipped (overdue tasks, or a
number moving away from its target), then quiet ones.

Each row shows:

- a progress ring for the current plan. Point at it to read, for example, "3 of 8 tasks done".
- the goal's name and, on wider screens, its number against the target, such as "6 / 10 qualified leads this
  week · On track", with an arrow for the trend.
- one line: the agent's latest update, or why the goal stopped, such as "Stopped for today: the daily session
  limit was reached."
- the next one or two tasks with their state and due date, and how many decisions wait for you.

Select a goal's name to open it. The **⋯** menu on the row has **Open**, **New session** and **Settings**.

Below the list, **Start a goal** offers **Sales**, **Customers** and **Operations**. Each opens a new goal with a
name filled in. The **+** next to the **Goals** heading opens a blank one. If you have no goals at all, Auto Lab
creates a first one for you and opens its setup.

## Create a goal

Choose **New goal** from the Goals home or **New goal…** from the goal switcher. Write the outcome in a sentence,
then the goal's agent sets it up with you in a short conversation. See
[Set up and launch a goal](/docs/goals/setup).

Only organization owners and admins can create goals. Anyone else sees "You need owner or admin access in an
organization to create a goal."

## Find your way around a goal

Inside a goal, the sidebar lists its pages from top to bottom:

| Row | What it opens | Read more |
|---|---|---|
| **All goals** | The Goals home. | [The Goals home](#the-goals-home) |
| **Set up** | Setup, until the first plan is launched. It shows how far you got, such as "2 of 3". | [Set up and launch a goal](/docs/goals/setup) |
| **Overview** | The goal, what needs you and the week's work. A number on the row counts what needs you. | [Overview, Needs you and Activity](/docs/goals/overview) |
| **Chat** | The goal's one conversation, on the web and in your channels. | [Chat and runs](/docs/goals/chat) |
| **Activity** | What the goal did, day by day. | [Activity](/docs/goals/overview#activity) |
| **Brain** | What the agents know and how that changes, starting with Learning. | [What's in the Brain](/docs/brain) |
| **Files** | A read-only view of the goal's repository. | [Browse the goal's files](#browse-the-goals-files) |
| **Apps** | Only when the Apps feature flag is on for the goal. | [Feature flags](/docs/goals/settings#feature-flags) |
| **Settings** | The goal's configuration. | [Goal settings](/docs/goals/settings) |

You see the rows your role allows. A goal member sees Overview, Chat, Activity and the Learning tab of Brain.
**Files**, **Settings** and the rest of Brain are for goal admins. **Set up** shows only to people who can change
the goal.

## Switch between goals

Select the goal's name at the top of the sidebar. The menu has:

- **Switch goal**: type in **Find a goal…**, pick a goal from the list (grouped by organization when you belong
  to more than one), open **Organization settings**, or start **New goal…**
- **All goals**: back to the Goals home
- **Settings**: your personal settings, not the goal's

## Who can see a goal

Organization owners and admins can open every goal in their organization. Everyone else sees a goal only after
someone adds them to it, directly or through a group, as a goal member or a goal admin. A member can open the
goal and follow its work, but cannot write in Chat. An admin can also talk to the agent and change the goal, its
Brain, its settings and who has access.

To add or remove people, open **Settings › Access**. It lists the people and groups on the goal, pending
invitations and requests for access. The exact rights of each role are in
[Roles and access](/docs/organization/access).

The Goal brief also has an **Access** row: **Only you** or **Everyone in your organization**, changed with
**Share** and **Make private**. It records who the goal is meant for. It does not add anyone by itself: use
**Settings › Access** for that.

## Pause a goal

Where you pause depends on the kind of work:

- **Triggers.** Open **Brain › Triggers**, choose the gear (**Trigger settings**) and switch on
  **Pause all triggers**. No trigger starts on its own until you switch it off, though you can still start one by
  hand. The goal moves to **Paused** on the Goals home. This needs permission to update triggers, which goal
  admins have.
- **The plan's routine and check-ups.** On a goal that runs in Chat, these are schedules the agent keeps. Open
  **Brain › Schedules** to see each one's next run, run it now or cancel it. See
  [Plans, schedules and triggers](/docs/goals/schedules).
- **How much runs each day.** **Settings › Autonomy** sets **Sandbox minutes per day** and **New sessions per
  day**. When a limit is reached, nothing that needs a new machine starts until the limits reset at midnight
  UTC. Chat and check-ins carry on, and the goal shows under **Needs you** on the Goals home.

> **Pausing triggers does not hold the plan's schedules**
>
> On a goal that runs in Chat, **Pause all triggers** stops triggers only. The routine and check-ups installed at
> Launch keep running until you cancel them in **Brain › Schedules**.

## Delete a goal

Open **Settings › Archive** and choose **Delete goal**. Type the goal's name to confirm. You need permission to
delete the goal, which goal admins and organization owners and admins have.

Deleting cannot be undone from Auto Lab. Everyone loses the goal at once: its sessions and their history, all
scheduled runs and triggers, and every connection, secret and API key scoped to it. The goal's git repository is
not deleted, and anything already pushed to it stays there.

## Browse the goal's files

**Files** shows the goal's repository as folders and files. It is read-only: changes to a goal arrive as change
requests that you review, not as edits here.

- Open a file to preview it. Right-click a file for **Download** or its **Version history**. **Download folder**
  is in the view options menu.
- The version picker (**Switch version**) chooses what you are reading: the **Main version**, or another version,
  such as the one a session is working in.
- **Version history** at the top lists every saved version. **Proposed changes** lists change requests waiting
  for review.

Files needs permission to read the goal's files, which goal admins have.