# Always-on

> Agents that wait in a sidebar or on a phone — persistent availability without a shared workplace.

Canonical: https://chattic.us/wiki/always-on/

**Always-on** means the agent is available without being summoned into a workplace: a sidebar, a phone, a proactive ping. Persistence here is *availability*, not *disk*.

That's a legitimate product. It's also a weak picture of an [agent workplace](/wiki/agent-workplace). A workplace can be idle; it still has files, a roster, and a computer that the next turn can pick up. An always-on companion can remember you and still have nowhere to put a long-running job.

## Where the ideas touch

Chatticus needs bots that can answer while the computer is booting — per-capability readiness rather than one blanket "machine ready" gate. That's a slice of always-on *inside* a workplace. It isn't the always-on category as the market means it (personal assistant, meeting notetaker, inbox watcher).

[Named teammates](/wiki/named-teammates) can be always-reachable *and* have desks. The mistake is collapsing those into one: if the only persistence is the chat thread, you've got a companion and not a farm.

Launches in this category are current events for **Agent Zoo**. This page stays the idea.