Hiring, switching and letting staff go

Roles and holders#

The manor has a role for each kind of work: the Smith, the Porter, the Reeve, the Herald and the rest. Each role is held by one agent, or left vacant. Some roles can be held by more than one agent, each made for a different kind of PC: the Lamplighter's office by the Lamplighter on a gamer's PC or the Watchman on an everyday one, the Clerk's by the Clerk or the Scribe, and so on. The agents page shows them all.

Hiring an agent is enough for it to take up its role. Leaving a role vacant doesn't stop its agent: use Stop for that.

Hire an agent#

1. On a vacant role's card, choose Hire.
2. The list shows everyone who could hold the role. Choose one to read its entry: what it does, what it's made for, whether it works on its own or works with you, and the office's history.
3. Choose Hire <name>.

Castellan downloads the agent's latest release, checks it, installs it with the agent's own installer, and gives it the role. Updates shows the install as it goes. Once it's in, its card offers Take the tour: see Your first day with Castellan.

Your license decides who can be hired: a card shows Subscribe instead of Hire for an agent your license doesn't cover, or Start the trial on a PC that's never had one. See Your license, the trial and your PCs.

Switch a role to another agent#

1. On the role's card, choose Employee management, then Switch to another employee.
2. Choose who should hold it. One already hired takes the role at once; one not hired yet is hired first, then takes it.

The agent that held the role is let go once the new one is in. If the new one can't be hired, nothing changes.

To move a role between two agents you've both hired, Expand the card and choose a Holder. Holder can also leave the role vacant.

Fire an agent#

1. On its role's card, choose Employee management, then Fire <name>, and confirm.
2. The agent's own uninstall runs: its page closes, and its program goes. Its role is vacant, and its card offers Hire again.

Its settings and data stay, so hiring it again picks up where it left off. If its uninstall fails, it stays hired, and you can fire it again.

The developers' staff#

Some of the staff solve developers' problems, and someone who isn't a developer has no need of them: Reeve, the Toller, the Assayer, the Developer Herald, the Pinder and the Steward, all in Workshop. Hiring one is what turns the developer side of Castellan on; there's no switch.

• They're offered when you hire, marked as the developer variant: on every card's hire list, and in the welcome when the PC is for Software development.
• A shared office goes to the developer agent. The Herald's office, say: once the Developer Herald is hired it holds the office, and the Herald stays on duty behind it, still doing its own rounds. The card says so, with Open Herald. Fire the developer agent and the general one holds the office again. The other offices with a developer agent work the same way: the Porter behind the Toller, the Thatcher behind Reeve, the Shepherd behind the Pinder, the Cellarer behind the Steward, and so on.
• The developer features show: logs, exit codes, ports and settings files on the agents' pages, your own repositories in Settings, and the Warrener's and the Miller's developer sections. They hide again when the last developer agent is fired.

Settings > Developer agents lists which are hired, each developer office and who holds it.

On duty and off duty#

An agent on duty does its scheduled work. Stop takes it off duty: its rounds stop, but its page still opens and its settings stay. Start puts it back. An agent you've stopped stays stopped: Castellan never starts it behind your back.

When a 7-day trial ends without a license, the agents it hired go off duty once, and their cards say why. A license puts them straight back.