What to read next

Three reading paths through the documentation: running a workshop, writing agent prompts, and wiring Orchemax into a team.

Pick the path that matches what you came for#

I want to run my own workshop#

Read the concepts in this order — each one is short and answers one question.

  1. Workspace and project — what orch setup bound, and why a project is not the same thing.
  2. Chair and workers — who may spawn whom, and what happens when a second Chair arrives.
  3. Disk memory — where the workshop remembers things, and why chat does not count.
  4. Shared code law — locks, orch:export, and the clone gate that stops you writing a function twice.

I am writing prompts for an agent#

The agent reads the contract, not this site. Still, these two pages tell you what to ask for:

  1. Bus and ask — how a worker reaches the Chair, and how a blocking question is answered.
  2. Code graph — the four queries that answer "who calls this?" and "what does this diff break?".

The full tool-by-tool contract lives in client/docs/PROTOCOL-AGENT.md in the repository: every MCP tool, its arguments, its success shape and its failure shapes.

I am setting this up for a team#

  1. Hooks and guards — what is opt-in, what is advisory and what actually denies a write.
  2. Gateway and overlook — one local connection for provider keys, and what the SaaS side can and cannot see.
  3. Team work schedules — company timezone and weekday On/Off/Ignored windows (Team+).
  4. Chair and workers — plan caps for open Chairs vs concurrent workers, and the cheap-worker roster.

Things worth knowing early#

  • Hidden does not mean unavailable. Run orch --help to see what it actually shows: orch session, orch task, orch msg, orch ask and orch guard are listed under "Agents & workshop:" today. Only the genuinely internal verbs (orch symbols, orch lock, orch memory, orch ledger, among others) stay off that list to keep it short, and each still answers --help.
  • Loose mode is not an error. Run orch outside a bound workspace and the shared-protocol tools return a skip message rather than failing. The gateway still works.
  • Nothing here is automatic. Guards, git hooks, IDE hooks, memory condensing and the overlook link are all things you turn on.
  • Quickstart — if you have not run the seven steps yet, start there.
  • Install — suggested folders per OS, PATH, orch version, orch home.