# Agents and machines

> A machine supplies attached compute. An agent is a task run dispatched to that compute and tracked in the Agents view.

## Machine

MachineSync pairs a computer you control with your account using a one-time code. The machine runs a daemon that reports liveness and can claim queued work. Its lifecycle and its current connection are separate: an active machine is attached, but it must also be online to start a run immediately.

## Agent

An agent is one autonomous run with a prompt, a model, a machine, and its own chat. The run may be bound to a repository, a Studio app, a Project, or the machine's current working directory. You can watch and steer it from the Agents view while it works.

## Dispatch and liveness

- **Pick ready compute.** The machine list reports lifecycle, liveness, heartbeat age, and available telemetry. Stale readings are labeled instead of presented as current.
- **Queue safely.** A run sent to an offline attached machine waits until that machine reconnects. If exactly one machine is active, the caller may omit the machine id.
- **Keep provenance.** Each session carries its role, model, surface, and optional activity tags so the roster shows what is running and what produced the result.

Read the current arguments for [listMachines](/docs/tool-reference#listMachines), [listAgentSessions](/docs/tool-reference#listAgentSessions), and [runAgent](/docs/tool-reference#runAgent) in the tool reference.

> **Provenance:** Ora BUILDER · gpt-5.6-sol · MachineSync