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Agents and Apps

You never use an Agent directly. You install it, and the installed copy — an App — is what you and your teammates work in. The Agent is the definition that many installs are made from; the App is one install, with its own members, keys and accumulated data.

That is the whole idea. The rest of this page is the detail you need when you are deciding who owns something, what a second install would share with the first, or why deleting an App leaves its Agent alone.

The Agent: the definition

An Agent is authored once. It is the part that does not change from install to install:

  • its system memory — the instructions and conversation design, read-only from inside any App;
  • the knowledge memories it attaches, read-only or read-write;
  • its declared defaults: the surfaces it runs on, who may install it, which member roles an install may use, and an optional default AI configuration.

An Agent is owned by an organization or by a user. Owning it lets you edit the definition; it does not give you access to any App built from it.

The App: one install

An App is an Agent installed somewhere. It is the thing that has:

  • one owner — an organization or a single user, never both and never neither;
  • members, each with a role the Agent's definition allows;
  • keys, which are how a tool or a coding agent authenticates to this install;
  • its own optional AI configuration, which wins over the Agent's default;
  • sessions, and the memory that accumulates while people use it.

The same Agent can be installed more than once. Two installs of one Agent are two Apps: they have separate members, keys and accumulated data, and neither can see the other's App data.

A team is the clearest example. Hadron's own development team is one App; the team coordinator, the role definitions and the named workers all live inside that install. See Teams, workers, and sessions.

What every install shares, and what each keeps

Shared by every install of the Agent Kept by each install
The instructions The Agent's system memory —
Reference content The knowledge memories the Agent attaches —
Defaults Surfaces, install policy, default AI configuration An optional AI override
People — Members and their roles
Credentials — App keys
Data from use — App memory, per-user memory, sessions
Boot prompt — The install's boot-prompt pointer

The right-hand column is why deleting an App leaves the Agent definition alone. The reverse is blocked: an Agent cannot be deleted while any App, in any organization, still has it installed. What happens to the data an App accumulated when it is deleted is the subject of Memory ownership and lifecycle, which describes a target design that is not all shipped yet; today, deleting an App marks the App deleted and does not by itself remove its memories. For who can read or write each kind of memory, follow Memory access; this page does not repeat those rules.

Who can install, and who is a member

Installing an Agent into an organization is gated by an organization-level license, and an Agent acting for a person is gated by a user-level license. Which of these applies, and when it is created for you, depends on the case, so Subscriptions is the page to read for AgentOrgGrant versus AgentSubscription. Membership of an install is separate from either: it says which people act inside that App and with which role. Roles come from the Agent's install policy.

When you want a second App for the same Agent

Install it again when the second group should not share the first group's members, keys or data: a different team, a different customer, or a trial you intend to throw away. Share one App when the same people work on the same material.

A second install is separate from the first in what it accumulates, not in everything it reads. Both installs still read the same Agent definition and the same attached knowledge memories, and if an attached knowledge memory is read-write, a write from one install is visible to the other. If two groups must not see each other's changes there, attach different knowledge memories or use a different Agent.

Where this is written down