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Autonomy & multi-agent

Vanta can run unattended, on a schedule, and fan work out to subagents — every spawned action still passes through the kernel.

Scheduling (cron)​

vanta schedule "<instruction>" --cron "0 8 * * *"   # add a recurring task
vanta schedule list                                  # see tasks
vanta cron                                            # run due tasks (OS-scheduler-invoked)

Tasks live in .vanta/cron.tsv (5-field cron). The runner runs every due active task; one failure doesn't abort the batch.

Subagent delegation​

The delegate tool spawns a scoped worker with its own goal, prompt, and iteration budget, and returns only the verified outcome. Pass agent_type to select a built-in or markdown-defined prompt, tool allowlist, and optional default model. The child registry excludes delegate itself, so there's no runaway recursion. See Prompt presets & custom agents.

Background teams​

A named worker roster with a task ledger (assignment + legal status transitions):

  • team dispatch / advance / tasks — manage assignments
  • team run — actually spawns a worker for a dispatched task (child registry excludes recursive fan-out; every worker tool call is kernel-gated)
  • Manage from the CLI: vanta agents, attach/logs/respawn/stop/rm <id>, daemon status/stop

See Operator systems.

Swarm & workflows​

swarm / compose_workflow coordinate multiple agents for a larger task; a local in-process A2A (agent-to-agent) message bus carries structured messages between them.

Standing loops (Ralph)​

A durable project loop persists to .vanta/ralph-loop.json: a goal, an ordered feature list, per-feature status, summaries, and the next action. On restart it surfaces paused until you /goal resume or /goal drop — it never silently resumes last session's work. The /loops view shows live loop state.

Gateway (always-on)​

Run Vanta as a service that reacts to schedules, messages, and webhooks — see Comms & gateway.