automate the work you keep doing by hand
guild membershipA client call ends and the transcript lands in a folder. By the time you sit down it is written up, the actions are on your workbench, and the client's profile is current. That job is a sequence.
The work that never gets done is the work you have to remember to do. Filing the call. Turning the notes into tasks. Keeping the client record current. Each one is ten minutes, none of them is hard, and all of them slide.
A sequence takes one of those jobs and writes it down as a set of stages an agent runs start to finish. Then it stops being your job. A schedule can start it, a file landing in a watched folder can start it, or a URL changing can start it. You find the work already done.
The definition lives at .crystl/sequences/<name>/sequence.json in your own repository, so it is reviewable, diffable, and shared with everyone who clones the repo. Each stage names an agent, a size, and a brief, then declares what it reads from earlier stages and what it writes. crystl passes exactly those files between them and nothing else, so a stage cannot quietly depend on something the definition never mentions.
Automation you cannot trust is worse than none, so every stage carries its own accept gate: the files it promised have to exist, be non-empty, or match a JSON schema. A stage that produced nothing fails there. The run stops instead of handing the next stage an empty file and letting the mistake travel.
Cost is the other thing that kills a daily job. Sizes are yours to map, so the heavy parsing stage can run on a standard model while the tidy-up stages run on a small one, and any size can point at an open model on your own hardware.
Writing and validating a definition is free on every tier, since it is a file in your repository. Running one, and any trigger that runs one for you, needs a Guild membership.
Sequences are an early preview. A definition you write today may need adjusting as the format settles.
Why it matters
It starts without you
A calendar recurrence, a file landing in a watched folder, or a change at a polled URL. The job you would have remembered to do on Monday is done before you open your laptop.
The same job every time
Asking an agent to redo a five-step job next week gets you a slightly different job. A sequence is the job written down, so this month's run matches last month's.
A bad stage stops there
Every stage has an accept gate that checks what it produced. A stage that promised a file and wrote nothing fails, rather than passing an empty file down the line for you to find later.
Cheap enough to run daily
Parsing is usually the expensive part and the rest is not. Give the first stage a standard model and the later stages a small one, or your own open model, and a daily job costs what it should.
Unattended, and still fenced in
Anything that runs while you are away declares what it is allowed to do. The sequence sets the outer envelope and every stage sits inside it. A stage can narrow that list. It can never widen it.
Try it before it costs anything
crystl sequence validate resolves the whole thing, every stage, agent, size, and trigger, and reports what would happen without starting an agent. A draft cannot fire until you publish it.
Ready to try it?
Create a free account and download crystl for macOS.
get startedgetting started guide →Frequently asked questions
- What is a sequence?
- A recurring job written down once and automated end to end. It runs as a set of agent stages, each handed what the last one produced, and it can start itself. The definition lives at .crystl/sequences/<name>/sequence.json in your own repository.
- What sort of work is worth automating this way?
- Anything you redo on a rhythm and keep putting off. Filing a call transcript as a memory, turning it into tasks and a client record, triaging the overnight test failures, or sweeping a feed for what changed and writing it up. The job has to be describable in steps; it does not have to be code.
- How is a sequence different from fanout or a scheduled agent?
- Fanout spreads one task across many agents working at once. A scheduled agent is a single prompt on a timer, with no stages and no gates. A sequence automates a whole job: stages in order, each one handed the last one's output, each one checked before the next starts.
- What can start a sequence?
- Four triggers are implemented today: manual, a calendar schedule at a wall-clock time, a change to a watched file path, and a polled URL whose content changed. Watched paths are literal prefixes rather than globs, and a poll response has to validate against a JSON Schema you declare before the run starts.
- What stops a stage from producing garbage for the next one?
- Its accept gate. A stage can require that files exist, that they are non-empty, or that they match a JSON schema. If a stage promised a file and did not write it, the stage fails and the run stops rather than handing the next stage an empty input.
- What happens when a stage finds nothing to do?
- It reports crystl stage nothing, which is a success: the run keeps going. That is different from crystl stage blocked, which means the stage needs a person, so the run parks until you deal with it.
- Can different stages use different models?
- Yes. Each stage picks its own agent and size, so the expensive parsing stage can run on a standard model while the later stages run on a small one. Sizes map to whatever you taught crystl, including an open model on your own hardware.
- Are sequences free?
- Writing and validating a definition is free on every tier, since it is a file in your own repository, and so is reading the catalog and the record of past runs. Running a sequence, and any schedule, file, or poll trigger that runs one for you, needs a Guild membership.
- Are sequences finished?
- They are an early preview. The shape of a definition file may still change between releases, so treat one you write today as something you may need to adjust later.
Crystl's Book of Spells
Master crystl with a grimoire of powerful prompts. Summon heroes, assemble a party, revive shards, and complete epic quests.
open the book →More features
Gems & Shards
Gems, shards, and the crystal rail keep every project one click away.
Action Panels
See what every agent is doing at a glance.
Agent Activity Panel
One live view of every agent across all your gems: who's working, who's idle, and where tokens are going.
Schedule Agents
Launch a fresh agent at a set time (once, daily, or weekdays). Pick the gem, agent, model, and prompt; crystl fires it on schedule.
Parallel Sessions
Run multiple Claude instances on the same repo in separate git worktrees.
Hero Shards
Summon a single hero as a shard (its own agent, model, and persona) without a quest party.
History Navigator
Browse, jump through, and search every session: conversation and tool calls.
Token Tracking
Track token burn per shard, estimate turns left, and reclaim context window by disabling heavy plugins and skills.
Workbench
A slide-out task list in every project, backed by a WORKBENCH.md the agent reads and writes with you.
Markdown Editor
Render and edit any .md in a side panel. Toggle it from the workbench, and let agents open docs for you from the CLI.
Prompt Integration
Facet Inserts give you one-click access to saved prompts, commands, and shortcuts.
Agent File Editor
Create, edit, and manage CLAUDE.md, rules, skills, and agent config files with a block editor, file chooser, and project optimizer.
Project Optimizer
Scan your project for gaps in agent configuration (missing files, incomplete docs, oversized code, and setup issues) with one-click fixes.
Skills Library
Browse and import agentic skills that teach agents like Claude Code or Codex new tricks: code review, testing, deployment, and more.
Cavrn
The terminal as structured data: every turn, tool call, result, and table captured as agent-readable metadata. Drawn fast on the GPU with Metal.
Remote Development
Full crystl integration over SSH: approval panels, file relay, and click-to-open on remote machines.
Open Models
Run open models locally or hosted, orchestrate them with frontier agents, and cut token costs.
Agent Orchestration
One agent spawns, supervises, and merges the work of many: a control room for a team of coding agents.
crystl quest
Assemble a party of specialized agents. Each brings unique skills, coordinates in shared chat, and executes in parallel.
Screenshot Bar
Drag recent screenshots into the terminal. Spotlight-powered, always up to date.
Copy Bar
A one-click copy bar under the terminal. Agents stage text, you click Copy. Editable, up to 10 tabs, free.