Helpers & where turns run
A daimon can put helpers to work in parallel, and a turn you start on one device can be run by another. Both are visible, and both are yours to stop.
Helpers
Some tasks want work done, and for those a diamond's daimon dispatches helpers, agents that run on their own with the file tools, each given the standing instructions and this diamond's memory.
A helper cannot see your conversation. The memory is the whole of what it knows about the work, so the task it is handed has to say everything else.
Up to eight run at once and the rest queue. The daimon dispatches them and its turn ends there. Each reports back, and you keep the ones worth keeping. A helper cannot dispatch another helper, so delegation goes one level and stops.
A diamond's settings carry a Helper model, separate from the one its daimon thinks with. A helper keeps the model it started on, and a change applies to the next one.
The Agents panel
Live runs appear in Agents, in the dock, with a line saying how many are running, paused and queued. Each tile shows its cost as it accrues, and not only at the end.
Three controls sit in the header and again on every tile.
- Pause. Hang up what is running and hold the queue. A running helper keeps what it had produced, and nothing new starts.
- Resume. Carry on from where each left off, without starting over, so a pause costs nothing but the wait.
- Stop. End them outright. Each keeps what it managed. Clear finished agents tidies up.
The wider brake is the Everything row at the top of the rail, which covers every diamond, every chat, the helpers, the mailboxes, and any page being fetched. A paused thing refuses a turn before it starts, so nothing is spent.
Which device runs a turn
With more than one device on your account, one can run a turn for another and the answer syncs back. Hand-off is off until you turn it on in the permission chip, with Hand off when you step away.
It helps most on a phone, which cannot run a command on your computer, and on a laptop you are about to close.
Naming the device that picks turns up
Without a nomination, a handed-off turn goes to whichever device is freshest and awake. The freshest device is usually the right one, but a laptop about to close can take a turn and take it with it.
Open Settings and then Devices. Each row ends in a star. Press the hollow one beside the machine that is usually on and it fills in. There is exactly one at a time, so starring a second clears the first. The nomination travels with your ordinary sync.
The nomination is only half of it. The next time that machine is running Daimond it asks Make this device the runner? Answer This device is the runner and it holds that posture from then on. The posture does not travel, because it commits that machine to staying awake and listening.
The question is asked once. Say no and it is not asked again until you clear the nomination and make it afresh.
Keeping the browser out of the way
A browser slows a hidden tab to about one wake-up a minute and may park a whole page to save memory. A slowed device is worse than none, because it still reports itself awake and collects nothing.
So give it a browser of its own. dev/runner-chrome.sh in the Daimond source starts one with a separate profile, an app window in place of a tab, and those throttles off. Run it with --dry-run to read the command first, or --install to have it start with your desktop session.
Two things are beyond the script. Turn Memory Saver off in that profile, or add Daimond to its exceptions. And leave the window open and not minimised, because behind other windows is fine and minimised is treated as hidden.
What you see while it runs
The turn says where it went. First it reads Sent to your other devices, then the machine's own name as it picks the turn up and while it works. The answer appears where you started it.
Two buttons sit beside that line the whole time. Take back returns the turn to the device in your hand, and Run here runs it locally if nothing picked it up. Naming your devices under Settings › Devices is what makes these lines read as a name.
A turn handed off looks for the nominated device first, then any other awake computer that is listening, then the device you are on. A phone is never given another device's turn.
Two things that still stop it
Both need a moment of your attention on that machine, and neither shows up on the device you are holding.
- A folder permission waiting for a click. If a turn needs a folder the browser has not granted, the request is raised on that machine's own screen and waits. Open the folder there once and later turns find the permission given.
- A locked screen. A computer keeps the key it holds for that tab across a reload, so an update no longer stops it. You can turn that off per device with Stay unlocked across reloads under Devices. A phone is never kept unlocked, so a phone doing this work comes back locked.
If a device has stopped taking turns and nothing else explains it, go and look at its screen.