How SW Agent's worker runs a job

A job runs a plan: the steps of a chain, one function, or several chains together. Each step waits for the steps it needs, the order is worked out before the first step starts and never changes while it runs, and a plan whose steps would wait on each other in a circle is refused before anything runs. When a step cannot finish, only the steps that need it are skipped; the others still run. Jobs draws the plan as a node graph.

• Worker jobs

There is a checkpoint before every step. Pause and Stop take effect there, never in the middle of a step, so a step that is writing into your project, putting a file in a workspace or encoding a video finishes first and nothing is left half done. A paused job keeps its place in the queue until you press Resume. A stopped job skips the steps it had not started and keeps what it already made.

In Classic or Studio a job stops and asks before a step that changes the open project (a new look, another frame shape, a file put into it) and before a long render to a video file. Approve or Decline it in Jobs; the chat tells you when a job is waiting. One answer covers every step of that job that changes the project. No answer within 30 minutes counts as no, and only the steps that needed it are skipped. Pressing Start or Run as a job under a render's time estimate is already your go-ahead for that render.

Every job keeps a ledger: when it opened, each checkpoint and whether Pause or Stop was set, each step started, finished or skipped and why, each question it asked and how you answered (with the words of the button you pressed), and how it ended. Entries are only ever added, never changed. Open Ledger on a job in Jobs, or press Read its ledger on an earlier job in your SW Agent history.