Skip to content

Asking Atlas

Dominic edited this page Jul 10, 2026 · 2 revisions

Asking Atlas

Atlas is the browser + research sub-agent. It opens URLs, takes screenshots, fetches HTML, clicks buttons, and reads pages. Multiple Atlas calls in the same turn run in parallel.

The basic pattern

Say Delegate to Atlas: and describe the task. Atlas runs in the background in its own context window — the orchestrator gets a job ID back immediately and stays free for your next message. When Atlas finishes, the result lands in the orchestrator's inbox and it reports back in the chat.

Delegate to Atlas: open example.com and take a screenshot.

Parallel delegation

If two tasks are independent, say In parallel, delegate to Atlas: and enumerate them. The host runs them concurrently.

In parallel, delegate to Atlas:
(1) screenshot example.com, AND
(2) fetch the title of example.org.

Common patterns

Screenshot a pageDelegate to Atlas: screenshot example.com. Returns the rendered page as an image Atlas can read.

Read a URLDelegate to Atlas: open docs.example.com/api and tell me the auth options. Atlas reads the page text and summarizes.

Click + screenshotDelegate to Atlas: open the app, click "Sign in", screenshot the result. Atlas can interact with the page, not just read it.

Compare two pages — delegate two screenshots in parallel, then ask the orchestrator to compare them.

Supervised while it runs

Atlas is never fire-and-forget. While a job runs, the orchestrator checks in on it every 45 seconds — elapsed time, tool-call count, and what it last did — and decides: leave it alone, stop it if it's stuck or looping, or redirect it.

If a job fails or gets stopped, the orchestrator reads the full output, works out what went wrong, and automatically retries with a reworked task. You only hear about a failure when it can't be recovered.

When Atlas won't help

Atlas can't reach pages on private networks unless the host can. Pages behind login walls need credentials configured. Pages that block bots may return empty results — Atlas reports this honestly rather than fabricating.

The orchestrator does not code or edit files itself — it delegates those to Atlas. If you ask "fix the bug" without a file path, Atlas will have to guess; give it the path and the expected outcome.

Clone this wiki locally