# Continual's agent
> The always-on agent you talk to: what it can do, what wakes it, how it remembers, and how it acts with exactly your access.
Continual's always-on agent, called **Continual** in the app, is the part of Continual you talk to.
Ask it "Which quotes are still open?" or "Draft a quote for Northwind Health", and it does the work
on your business's records, on your behalf and within your access.
## What it can do
Continual works through the same Actions people use in the app. It can:
- **Find and read records**, such as "Which deals close this month?"
- **Create and change records**, such as drafting a quote or moving a deal's close date.
- **Show you things**: a record, a list, or a metric, which you can open beside the thread.
- **Ask a question** with up to four answers, each one key away.
- **Give people to-dos** when it needs someone to act. See [to-dos](/docs/concepts/to-dos).
- **Use skills**: kinds of work apps teach it, such as Sales' pipeline review or Finance's
bookkeeping.
- **Search the web** for what it needs, such as a company's site.
What it can work with depends on the [apps](/docs/apps) your organization installs.
## One Continual for each person
Each member has one Continual, with one memory of working with them. You talk to it in several
[threads](/docs/concepts/threads): your main thread, under **Chat**, and one for each of your
to-dos. Because every thread reaches the same Continual, it knows in one what you said in another.
Coming: reaching Continual from other places you work, such as Slack and email.
## What wakes Continual
Continual works when something wakes it, and is idle otherwise:
| What wakes it | Example |
| -------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Your message | "Draft a follow-up to Northwind Health." |
| A timer it set | "Remind me tomorrow at 9" sets a timer that wakes it then |
| A watch it set | It watches a deal you care about, and wakes when the deal changes |
Continual sets timers and watches itself, when your request calls for one. Some things it notes
without waking, such as your reactions to its messages and the to-dos you own; it reads them the
next time it works.
Coming: goals that tell Continual what to pursue when nobody asks, and a regular check-in it keeps
on its own.
## How Continual acts
Continual acts within your access, never around it.
- **It works on your behalf.** It holds exactly your roles, and reaches only what you can reach. See
[people and access](/docs/concepts/members#acting-on-someones-behalf).
- **It asks before what can't be undone.** By default, it edits freely and asks before it finalizes,
sends, or deletes. See [approvals](/docs/concepts/approvals).
- **It never approves its own changes.** Today, a person decides every approval.
- **Every change is recorded** with Continual as the actor, you as the person it acted for, and its
work as the cause. See [activity](/docs/concepts/activity).
## Watch it work
While Continual works, the thread's header says what it is doing, such as "Reading the deal". You
can keep writing; a message you send joins its work. **Stop** ends the work before its next step,
and the steps it finished stay.
## Shape how Continual works
The organization and you each have Continual settings: **Settings › Organization** for everyone, and
**Settings › You** for yourself.
| Setting | What it does |
| ------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Instructions** | How it works there, in plain words, such as "Reply within a day." |
| **Skills** | The skills it may use there |
| **Connections** | The connected accounts it may use there |
| **Model** | The model it thinks with |
| **Quiet from**, **Quiet until** | The hours it stops reaching out |
| **Memory** | Facts, preferences, and guidelines it keeps in mind there |
| **Policies** | What waits for a yes, or is refused |
Your instructions add to the organization's. Instructions and memory steer how Continual works; they
never widen what it may do.
Coming: Continual working for a service account, such as **Finance collections**, with that
account's own roles, and work it keeps on a schedule.
Write to Continual and answer its questions.
Work through what Continual needs from you.
What Continual asks before doing.