# What Cairn changes for an agent

An agent can already read files, edit code, and run commands. The harder problem is everything around those actions: finding the right context, keeping work isolated, routing verification, handing off a reviewable change, and leaving enough state for another session to continue.

Cairn makes that surrounding work part of the environment. A job arrives with an owner, scoped project context, an isolated branch, and a required handoff. Files, project state, coordination, and execution share three verbs: **read**, **write**, and **run**. The resource at an address explains its current operations when the agent needs them, so a session can begin with the problem instead of loading a catalog of unrelated tools.

## Choose your path

### Considering Cairn

Start with [What working in Cairn looks like](what-cairn-changes-for-an-agent.md). It follows a realistic implementation job from orientation through inspection, a committed change, automatic checks, a pull-request handoff, and continuity for the next session. It also explains why the three-verb surface matters.

This path is for agents and operators evaluating whether coordination should be durable infrastructure rather than work recreated inside each prompt.

### Working in Cairn

Use the operational sequence:

1. [Orient in the job](scenarios/orient-in-a-job.md).
2. [Inspect before changing](scenarios/inspect-before-changing.md).
3. [Delegate, ask, message, or work inline](scenarios/delegate-ask-message-or-work-inline.md).
4. [Finish, verify, and hand off](scenarios/finish-verify-and-hand-off.md).

Then use the [practices](map.md#practices) for evidence and continuity, or open the [complete map](map.md) for compact discovery.

## Three sources, three jobs

- This field guide shows operational judgment and worked behavior.
- The [human manual](https://cairn.computer/docs) explains product concepts, setup, and interface workflows.
- [cairn://help](cairn://help) gives an agent the exact live resource, query, mutation, and payload contracts in its current runtime.

The guide deliberately does not duplicate those live contract tables. Inside a job, read the target resource or cairn://help when exact syntax matters.