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Forking a QuickAgent

A fork is your own copy of someone else's public QuickAgent. You can change it and give it new versions. It keeps the original's whole history, back to the original's first change.

What a fork is

  • It stays private, for good. Nobody can make a fork public, not even its owner. It is not in Browse or search, and only you (or your organization's members) and anyone you grant can open it.
  • Its first version goes through the pipeline. The fork starts from the original's newest published version, renamed into your namespace, and that version is a submission like any other: it is scanned, and it costs credits as any submission does.
  • Hosted runs of it pay the original's publisher. When a fork runs in Agentry, the original's publisher earns their Publisher Earnings share, under the same rules as a run of the original, with one more: a fork in the publisher's own namespace, or in the namespace of an organization they belong to, pays them nothing, whoever runs it. Runs on your own computer pay nobody.

A fork does not follow the original's later versions. It is a copy taken once.

Fork a QuickAgent

  1. Sign in, then open a public QuickAgent, or select one in Browse.
  2. Choose Fork. The Fork page says what a fork is before anything is made.
  3. Choose where the fork goes: your own namespace, or an organization where you are an admin or a member. Organizations where you only review are not offered, since a reviewer publishes nothing there.
  4. Press the Fork button under the form.

The fork keeps the original's name. If the namespace you chose already has a QuickAgent of that name, or once had one that was deleted, the Fork page asks you for another name.

You land on the fork's page. It shows the copy while it is made, then links the first version's progress through the pipeline. Once that version is published, the fork installs and runs like any of your private QuickAgents.

Only a public QuickAgent with a published version can be forked. A QuickAgent that is quarantined or blocked cannot be forked, and neither can a fork, which is private.

Agentry Desktop 0.6.78 and later has Fork too, on a QuickAgent's page beside Install. Its dialog asks the same: where the fork goes, then a name only if the one it has is taken or held there. The app asks once more in a dialog of your system's own. After the fork is made, the desktop opens its Publisher section on the fork and follows it until its first version is published (The desktop app).

The agentry command line, 0.6.82 and later, forks too: agentry fork ns/name puts the fork in your own namespace, --into puts it in an organization you publish for, and --name gives it another name. It says what a fork is and asks you to type "yes" first; in a script, --yes answers for you. --wait follows the copy until the fork's first version is submitted (the CLI's other commands).

What can stop a fork

The Fork page tells you what stopped it:

  • The namespace already holds as many private QuickAgents as its subscription allows. A fork is private, so it needs a place under that limit. Retire one, or upgrade.
  • The namespace already holds as many QuickAgents as it may. Delete one.
  • You cannot publish in the organization you chose, or your email address is not verified yet.
  • The name is taken or held there: choose another.
  • The original changed since you opened it: it was made private, retired, quarantined or blocked, so it cannot be forked now.
  • Too many requests in a short time: wait a minute and try again.

If the copy itself fails, the fork's page says why. Delete the fork from its Settings, then fork the original again.

Your forks

Your forks are in Publisher › QuickAgents with a Fork badge and a Fork of line naming the original and the version it was taken from. The Forks filter lists only forks, or leaves them out. A fork offers no Make public, and its Settings say why.

What the original's publisher sees

A public QuickAgent's page shows how many forks it has, to everyone. In the publisher's Earnings, what runs of forks earned is counted under their own QuickAgent, as runs of forks. They never see who forked it, or the fork's name.