Orclings

Companions you design, each with its own conversation, instructions, and private memory. Think something through with one, or bring it into project work.

You give each Orcling a name, a look, a model and a permission, and its memory goes with it wherever it works. Talk to one when you want to think something through away from project work, or to check on all your projects at once. When there's code to change, it starts the work in a project.

Create an Orcling

Click Orclings on the sidebar's rail. The sidebar lists your Orclings in place of your threads.
Click New Orcling, the plus button at the end of the row above the list. If you have no Orclings yet, clicking Orclings opens the designer right away.
Pick its look from Shape, Eyes, Texture, Glasses and Accessories, and choose a Body color. Eye color appears under Eyes.
Type a Name. Two Orclings can't share a name, whatever the case or punctuation.
Choose its Model and its Permission. For a Claude model, when you have more than one Claude account, choose its Claude account too.
Click Create Orcling. Its conversation opens and invites you to say hi.

Permission	What the Orcling does
Approve	Asks before every command or edit, like Review everything, and before saving a memory, rewriting its instructions or starting work in a project. On OpenCode, which can't ask before each command, it stays in Plan instead.
Allow	Runs without asking, like Autonomous.

Wherever an Orcling works, it never gets more freedom than its permission. See Modes and permissions.

Its own conversation

With Orclings on, the sidebar lists your Orclings like contacts, with each one's face, name and the last thing said. Click one to open your conversation with it. To find one, click Search or press ⌘K. These conversations don't appear in the thread list. Click Orclings again to go back to your threads.

An Orcling on a Claude model keeps its own Claude account wherever it works, so a project thread's account doesn't change it.

The conversation never ends, and you can't resolve it. After six hours without a turn, or once the conversation fills most of the model's context, your next message starts a fresh session that picks up where you left off. The Orcling can still search everything said before.

Choosing a model in its composer changes the Orcling's own model, as editing it in the designer would.

It texts the way a person does: short messages, one for each paragraph, with typing dots while it works. Its tool calls stay out of sight. Approvals, questions and work it starts still show in the chat.

Point at one of its messages to react with ❤️, 👍, 👎, 😂, 😮 or 😢. Choose the same reaction again to take it back. The Orcling hears your reactions before your next message. It reacts to your messages too, and sometimes a reaction is its whole reply.

To keep your Orclings in reach, right-click Orclings on the rail and choose Show Orclings on the rail. Each face sits under the button, with a mark when it has something new or needs you. While they're hidden, the Orclings button shows the mark instead.

Check-ins

An Orcling can wake up on its own and text you when it has something worth saying, such as news about work it started. When it has nothing to say, you don't see that it woke.

Open its conversation and the Orcling tab beside it.
Under Check-ins, turn on When OpenOrc opens, or click Add a time and choose a time and the days it applies to.

A check-in time that passes while OpenOrc is closed wakes the Orcling once when OpenOrc next opens. Waking when OpenOrc opens needs six quiet hours since the last one and since anything was said, so restarting OpenOrc doesn't wake it again.

Each check-in is a turn on the Orcling's model, so it counts against that account's usage even when the Orcling says nothing.

Orclings together

Orclings can text each other, and you can chat with several at once.

Direct messages. When one Orcling can help another, it texts it by name. The message shows up in the other Orcling's chat under the sender's name and face, and its answer comes back the same way. In the sender's chat you see what it sent and to whom. A message from another Orcling never marks a chat unread unless that Orcling then writes to you. After six messages between Orclings with nobody writing, they wait until you write.

Group chats. To start one, open the Orclings list and click New group chat beside New Orcling. Choose at least two Orclings, name the chat if you like, and click Start chat. An Orcling can also start a group itself.

A message that names Orclings, with or without @, goes to them. One that names nobody goes to every Orcling in the group, one after another.
Each Orcling hears what the others said and answers in its own bubbles, under its name. When it names another Orcling, that one answers next.
After six Orcling turns in a row, the group waits for you.

A group has its own permission, Review changes at first, which you can change in its composer. Each Orcling also stays within its own permission. To remove a group, delete its conversation from its menu. The Orclings and their own chats stay.

Every answer in a group is a turn on that Orcling's model, so a message to the whole group costs a turn for each Orcling in it.

What it sees

An Orcling knows different things in its own conversation than when it works in a project.

	Its own conversation	A project conversation
Folder	A folder of its own, for notes and files. It's not a project or a repository.	The thread's folder: the project checkout or its worktree.
Starts with	Its instructions and its memory. No project's memory or rules come with it.	Its instructions and memory, plus the project's instruction files and memory.
Reaches	All your projects, through its own tools. It can look up a project's open tasks, recent threads and memory, read any thread, save a task to a backlog, start work in a project, and message any thread.	The project's code, tasks and threads, like any agent there, and its own tools as well.

Its own conversation isn't meant for changing project files. When you ask for changes in a project, the Orcling starts a thread there, does the work in that thread, and tells you where it runs.

Instructions and memory

Every Orcling starts with short instructions about how it works with you, and they're its to change. When you tell it how you'd like it to be, it rewrites them and says what it changed.

To read or edit them yourself, open the Orcling tab beside its conversation. Change the text under Instructions and click Save. Every version is kept, whether you or the Orcling wrote it, and Restore brings an earlier one back as the newest. New instructions apply when its agent next starts.

Its memory holds what lasts about you, such as your preferences, goals, decisions and the people you work with. The Orcling saves a memory when it learns something worth keeping. OpenOrc can also learn from its own conversation in the background. The memory goes with the Orcling into every conversation, and no project sees it.

The Memory list in the Orcling tab shows everything it remembers. Each entry's menu has Edit, Mark helpful, Retract and Delete.

Orcling memory uses OpenOrc memory, which stays off until you turn it on in Settings under Memory & models. While it's off, an Orcling can't save or recall memories.

Bring it into project work

Mention it: In another conversation, type @ and the Orcling's name. Your message goes to the Orcling, which answers in the thread under its own name. The thread's own agent reads the answer on its next turn. Wait until the thread is idle before you ask.
Give it a thread: In a project thread, open the model picker, switch to Orclings, and pick one. It takes over the thread on its own model, and the thread's mode can't be looser than its permission. Pick a plain model to take the thread back.
Start a thread with it: On the New thread screen, pick it under Orclings in the model picker. This works in projects, not in the Workspace.
Ask it to start work: In its own conversation, ask for something to be done in a project. It starts a thread there and works in it.

You can also mention an Orcling in a task comment or pick it to review a pull request. Other Orclings’ conversations don’t take mentions.

Edit or delete an Orcling

Open its conversation and click Edit in the Orcling tab. The thread's menu also has Edit followed by its name. In the designer, change its look, name, model or permission, and click Save. A new name also renames its folder, so wait until it isn't working.

To delete it, click Delete and its name at the bottom of the designer, then confirm with Delete.

Deleting an Orcling removes its conversation, instructions and memories. Threads it worked in keep their history.

Next steps

Project memoryKeep decisions and lessons from finished work, so the next thread starts with what you already learned.Threads working togetherLet threads message each other and start helper threads, and follow the subagents an agent runs.Modes and permissionsDecide how much an agent may do on its own, from planning only to editing and running commands.

Checked against OpenOrc's source on November 9, 2026.