Core concepts
Understand the small set of building blocks used throughout Guest Machines.
Guest Machines treats agents like programs: they accept input, use tools and knowledge, call other agents when allowed, and return output. The product builds on that model with a few reusable concepts.
Chat
A chat is a conversation with an agent. Use it to explore a problem, test behavior, and iterate before introducing automation.
Agent
An agent is a reusable AI worker with a purpose, instructions, model, tools, knowledge, and execution policy. An agent definition is the program; each execution is a run.
Knowledge
Knowledge is the context an agent can retrieve from files you upload. My Files holds private working material. Org Library holds material intentionally shared with the rest of the organization.
Team
A team is a group of agents that answer one request together. A team's work style decides how the request is broken up and how member output is recombined — one agent handles it, agents work one after another, plan first then divide the work, review before answering, or split the work then combine it. Members can carry an optional role label describing what each agent is there for.
Pipeline
A pipeline is a repeatable sequence of steps. Steps can map inputs and outputs, skip work conditionally, retry failures, or hand off to a backup agent.
Run
A run is one execution attempt. Its execution status and verification status answer different questions: Completed means execution finished, while Verified means platform-owned checks produced evidence that every required check passed. A completed run can be unverified, so completion alone is not a claim that the output is correct.
Verification is check-scoped. For example, an output-schema check means the platform locally validated one exact JSON result against the run's configured Draft 2020-12 contract. It proves the declared structure, not that the facts are true or that the result solved the task well. A schema mismatch fails the run; execution that pauses, is cancelled, or fails before producing a terminal result is not evaluated by the output verifier.
Events, tool calls, child runs, output, verification evidence, errors, and resource usage provide the operational record of what happened. A run can also stop part-way and wait for a person — to answer a question, approve a tool call, or approve a plan — until someone responds.
Trigger
A trigger starts work without a person clicking Run. Guest Machines supports scheduled work and inbound webhook flows. Add triggers only after the underlying agent, team, or pipeline is stable.