Run long-horizon goals

Beta

A goal is a standing objective the agent keeps making progress on across idle periods, instead of stopping once the current message is answered.

/goal Migrate the internal API client from v1 to v2 across all call sites
/goal edit          # adjust the current goal's objective
/goal pause         # stop idle continuation without losing the goal
/goal resume        # pick the continuation loop back up
/goal clear         # drop the current goal
/goal replace       # replace a finished goal with a new one

When a session goes idle with an active goal, octo continues working toward it on its own — the same machinery behind /loop, applied to a single durable objective instead of a recurring prompt. The underlying tools (get_goal, create_goal, update_goal) are also available to the model directly, so a goal can be created or refined mid-conversation, not just via the slash command.

/goal edit differs by transport

In the TUI, /goal edit with no text prefills the input box with the current objective for you to revise on the next Enter — /goal edit <text> is rejected outright, it’s prefill-only. In the Web UI and IM channels, /goal edit <text> edits the objective inline in one step. Everything else (pause/resume/clear/replace) works the same way everywhere, since goal state lives on the session itself, not the transport.

Turning it off

Goals are opt-in per session and can be disabled entirely:

~/.octo/config.yml

goal:
  enabled: false

With goals disabled, /goal reports itself as unavailable rather than silently no-op-ing.

Next: goals compose with channels — start one from your phone, let it run, and check back later.