# Give an agent a standing job

> An AQ bot wakes on a schedule, a Linear label, a failing check, a review comment, new mail or an upcoming meeting, does its job, and has a monthly cap.

Published October 28, 2026 · by the AQ team · Canonical: https://aq.dev/product/bots/

A bot wakes on a schedule or an event, does its job in its own thread, and asks you before it starts work you did not approve. Every bot has a monthly spend cap.

An AQ bot is a chat with a standing job. You write the job in plain words, pick what wakes it, and it runs as you, on your machine, with your accounts. Each wake is a message in the bot's thread, so you can read exactly why it woke and what it did, and change the job by just telling it.

## Bots teams run

Weekdays at 9:00

### Morning briefing

Mail and meetings that need you, AQ work waiting on you, drafts ready. Nothing is sent.

When CI fails on my pull request

### Keep it green

Tied to a work item, the bot fixes failing checks and answers review comments until the pull request merges.

Every Monday

### Security scan

Hinoki, a security model, scans the branch and reports findings with evidence and a fix.

## What can wake a bot

- **A schedule:** a time, a time zone and the weekdays.
- **A Linear label:** issues that get the label, through your own Linear account.
- **A failing check or a review comment** on the pull request of the work item it is tied to.
- **New mail** in Gmail and **an upcoming meeting** on Google Calendar, through your connected accounts.

Run now, pause, resume or end a bot from its header.

## Safe to leave running

- **Starting work is a rule:** Allow, Ask or Never. On Ask, the bot waits on a Needs you card and a notification.
- **Connected tools keep their permissions:** Allow, Ask or Off per tool, the same as everywhere else in AQ.
- **A monthly cap:** when the month's spend reaches it, the next wake is skipped and you are told once.
- **Undo:** when you ask the bot to change its own job, the change shows up as a row you can undo.

Any chat or work item can propose a bot when a request sounds like it should keep going, with every field editable before it starts. Your personal assistant is a bot too: [Genie](https://aq.dev/product/genie/).

Start free. A bot runs on your machine with your own accounts.

[Make a bot](https://aq.dev/signin?mode=bot)[See pricing](https://aq.dev/pricing/)

## Frequently asked questions

### What is an AI bot in AQ?

A bot is an AQ thread with a standing job: it wakes on a schedule or an event, does the job with the same tools a chat has, and reports in its own thread.

### Can a bot merge pull requests or send email on its own?

There is no merge tool. Email goes through your Gmail connection, which drafts and does not send. Other connected tools follow the Allow, Ask or Off permission you set per tool.

### How do I stop a bot from spending too much?

Each bot has a monthly spend cap. When the month's usage reaches it, the next wake is skipped and you get one notification. You can also pause it at any time.

### Can a bot work on an existing pull request?

Yes. A bot tied to a work item wakes on failing checks and review comments on its pull request, works in that branch, and ends when the pull request merges or closes.

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About AQ: AQ is the multiplayer coding harness where teams chat, build and run bots with every AI coding agent, like Claude Code and Codex: shared live terminals, review and merge, app previews and standing jobs, in your own cloud. Start at [aq.dev](https://aq.dev/).