Goals

A goal is something you want your agents to keep working towards: “keep me on top of AI news”, “make sure I never miss a bill”, “track this competitor”. Agent City doesn’t have a separate goal object. You give an agent a goal with four pieces you already have:

Piece	Gives the goal	Set it in
Context	The standing instructions: what the agent is aiming for and how to judge it.	The agent’s settings (the cog), under Context
Memory	The facts it needs: who you are, what you care about, what’s already done.	Shared memory, or the agent’s own memory
Automations	The rhythm: when to check, and what to do with what it finds.	Automations
Background tasks	The depth: room to do a big piece of work properly.	Ask in a chat (Long-running agents)

1. Write the goal into Context

Context is instructions an agent follows whoever asks it: you, My team, or an automation. That makes it the right place for a goal.

Open the agent’s settings and write the goal, what counts as progress, and what to leave alone:

Goal: keep me up to date on home battery prices in Australia.
- Track Tesla Powerwall, BYD and Sungrow, in AUD, including installation.
- Only report changes of more than 5%, or new models.
- Ignore US pricing and sponsored articles.

Keep it short and concrete. Small models follow “only report changes of more than 5%” far better than “only tell me what matters”.

2. Give it what it needs to know

Facts every agent should know (where you live, your budget, your family) go in Shared memory. Facts only one agent needs go in its memory. Tell it in a chat (“Remember that my budget is $12,000”) or add them yourself. See Memory.

3. Put it on a schedule

A goal needs checking in on. Make an automation that runs on a schedule and asks the agent to work towards it:

Starts: Mondays at 8:00
  → Agent: Scout   "Check this week's prices against your goal. What changed?"
  → Only if        "something changed by more than 5%, or there's a new model"
  → Final summary  "Three lines: what changed, by how much, and the source"
  → Posts the result to Activity

The Only continue if… step keeps quiet weeks quiet: nothing is posted unless there’s progress to report. For goals that should act, not just report, add an Ask me first step before anything that sends, buys or changes something.

Other starts suit other goals:

• A message arriving, for goals about your messages (“when Mum messages, make sure I reply the same day”).
• An incoming event, for goals about the world (“when the garage is left open, remind me”). See the Ingest API.
• Another automation finishing, to chain steps toward a bigger goal.

4. Let it go deep when it needs to

When a goal needs a big piece of work (the first full survey, a quarterly review), ask for it in a chat and the agent runs it as a background task, with far more steps and a report at the end. Its report is saved in the workspace under reports/, so a later automation step can ask the System agent to read it and compare.

5. Check progress

• Activity shows each run’s result, and Discuss this opens a chat about it.
• An automation’s Run history shows its last 30 runs, step by step.
• Ask My team: “How are battery prices tracking against my goal?” The coordinator knows what’s been posted to Activity.

Example: never miss a bill

Piece	Setting
Context (on your email agent)	“Goal: make sure no bill goes unpaid. A bill is an email with an amount due and a due date. Ignore receipts and marketing.”
Memory	“Bills I pay by direct debit: electricity, internet.”
Automation	Daily at 7: “Any new bills since yesterday? List amount and due date. Skip direct debits.” → Only continue if “there is at least one bill” → post to Activity
Reminder	The agent can set a reminder for each due date when you ask it to: “Remind me two days before each one.”