Quick start: Agents
Agents hand a long-running task to an autonomous agent that works in the background while you do something else.
Enable them first
The Copilot SDK is a normal dependency. What agents drive is a ~90 MB native runtime, and downloading it stays opt-in. Open Agents and click Install the Copilot CLI, then confirm the download. Settings → Agents and the Home launcher's New agent surface offer the same setup. Progress and any errors appear in place while you keep working.
If you already have a copilot on your PATH (Homebrew, npm, the official installer), Precursor picks it up and there is nothing to install at all.
Without a saved preference, Agents come on once the runtime resolves. If you previously turned Agents off, installing the CLI leaves that choice unchanged; enable it in Settings → Agents — the checkbox unlocks as soon as a runtime is there. A runtime that is installed but failed to start offers restart guidance, not another download.
Agents stays visible in navigation and the command palette throughout setup and recovery.
Run your first agent
Open Agents → New agent, describe the task, and start it. You land on the dashboard rather than inside the run: cards are sorted by urgency, so anything waiting on you floats to the top, and a card shows the tool an agent is running plus its own one-line narration of what it's doing.
Expect to answer permission prompts — until you loosen the approval policy, the agent asks before each tool call. Set it per agent, or globally in Settings → Agents.
Then try
- A token budget so a runaway run parks itself instead of spending.
- Run autonomously to turn the task into a standing objective the agent pursues across several turns.
- Chaining agents into a reusable pipeline.
Full detail: Agents.