Parallel Chores

Docs RightNow Agent Parallel Chores Updated 2026-10-11

Release status

RightNow Agent, the terminal coding agent, is paused. Its guides stay online as reference.

RightNow Agent includes a persistent local chore queue. Use it when work can be expressed as typed steps that the queue can verify.

Queue your first chore

Save this request as request.json and run the commands below from the same directory. Each directory has its own queue, stored under <RIGHTNOW_HOME>/chore-queues/.

JSON

{
  "objective": "Check repository status",
  "objective_postcondition": "git status exits zero",
  "steps": [
    {
      "kind": "check_command",
      "program": "git",
      "args": ["status", "--short"],
      "scopes": ["."],
      "expected_exit_code": 0
    }
  ]
}

Text

rightnow chore add request.json

Text

rightnow chore run

Text

rightnow chore status

Command reference

CHORE_ID is the ID that add prints.

Syntax	Behavior
rightnow chore add FILE	Add one chore from a JSON request; prints its ID.
rightnow chore run	Drain eligible work until no more can start; prints a JSON summary.
rightnow chore run --background	Apply configured background and AC-power policy while draining.
rightnow chore status	List chores that are queued, running, verified-done, failed-with-reason, or cancelled.
rightnow chore status --json	Emit the persisted queue state as JSON.
rightnow chore pause	Pause at transaction boundaries.
rightnow chore resume	Unpause; it does not start work.
rightnow chore cancel CHORE_ID	Request cancellation at the next transaction boundary.
rightnow chore retry CHORE_ID	Requeue a failure from its last verified checkpoint.

Request format

A request needs objective, objective_postcondition (a human note; typed step checks decide completion), and 1 to 128 steps. The optional integer priority (default 0) runs higher values first, then older chores.

Step kind	Behavior and fields
write_file	Write the file atomically.path, contents
replace_exact	Replace text that must occur exactly that many times.path, old, new, expected_occurrences
one_call_write_file	One bounded model turn that must write exactly contents to path.prompt, path, contents; optional read_scopes, timeout_secs
check_command	Run a program without a shell as a check; scopes lists every path it reads.program, scopes; optional args, cwd, expected_exit_code (default 0), timeout_secs
external_transaction	Always fails from the CLI: no executor is registered.transaction_kind, payload, postcondition, scopes

Steps time out after 5 minutes by default (24 hours at most). File contents are capped at 8 MiB, model prompts at 64 KiB, and a queue at 10,000 chores.

Default policy

The shipped configuration does not set these [rightnow] keys, so parser defaults apply:

Key	Default
chore_queue_background	false
chore_queue_parallelism	unset: one worker (range 1 to 64)
chore_queue_bounded_prompt_tokens	unset
chore_queue_heavy_background	false
fan_out_transactions	false

Shipped default

The shipped configuration performs no background chore execution and makes no parallel-speed claim.

Enable bounded parallel work

A chore_queue_parallelism value above one requires all of these, or queue setup fails:

chore_queue_bounded_prompt_tokens set to a positive measured value
an active default model with a model_provider
a context window on the model or provider that exceeds the bounded prompt ceiling

Only chores with disjoint scopes run together. Background heavy work (model turns and checks) also requires both background settings, confirmed AC power, and energy saver off; foreground chore run skips that policy. Parallel execution means concurrency across independent requests, not GPU batching or a provider-speed guarantee.

For help with a rejected request or invalid capacity settings, continue with Troubleshooting.