# Pause and replace

URL: /agents/pause-and-replace · Id: `page:agents/pause-and-replace`

> Stop one agent, one Team or every customer-facing agent at once, empty a seat, retire an agent, and put someone else in.

Any [Agent](/business/nouns/agent) in a [Startup](/business/nouns/startup) stops in one call, and any seat empties in another. The [Role](/business/nouns/role) contract stays put through both, so the next [Worker](/business/nouns/worker) inherits the seat unchanged.

## Stop
[Pause](/business/nouns/agent/pause) takes one of three scopes: one Agent, every Agent on a [Team](/business/nouns/team), or every Agent seated in a Role that answers customers. It is two-way, so it runs at once with no delay window.

| What stops | What carries on |
| --- | --- |
| New [Actions](/business/nouns/action) by the paused Agents | Actions already running finish |
| `pending` Actions they started, held past their windows | Every other Agent, and every [Process](/business/nouns/process) step another seat owns |
| Replies to customers, which get a holding reply from the Role address | [Tasks](/business/nouns/task), which queue in each seat for the resume |

[Resume](/business/nouns/agent/resume) restarts the Agent with its [Memory](/business/nouns/memory), [Mandates](/business/nouns/mandate) and [Limits](/business/nouns/limit) unchanged. Held Actions get what remained of their windows, and queued Tasks run oldest first.

## Narrower stops
Pause the smallest thing that fixes the problem.

| To stop | Call |
| --- | --- |
| One pending Action | [Action.pause](/business/nouns/action/pause), or [cancel](/business/nouns/action/cancel) it |
| Everything under one standing authority, such as ad spend | [Mandate.pause](/business/nouns/mandate/pause) |
| One Process starting new Actions | [Process.pause](/business/nouns/process/pause) |
| One Agent, one Team, or every customer-facing Agent | [Agent.pause](/business/nouns/agent/pause) |
| The whole Startup | [Startup.pause](/business/nouns/startup/pause), which moves it to Dormant |

## Empty a seat
[Vacate](/business/nouns/role/vacate) takes the Worker out of a Role. Until someone is [staffed](/business/nouns/role/staff), the seat's Tasks route to the Role it escalates to, usually the Team's lead.

The seat keeps its contract, its Processes and its [Mailbox](/business/nouns/mailbox). [Customers](/business/nouns/customer) who wrote to `support@` keep writing there, and the next Worker reads the whole history.

## Retire an agent
[Retire](/business/nouns/agent/retire) removes an Agent from every seat in the Startup for good. It is one-way, so it waits a business hour, and it ends the Agent's Mandates and [Permissions](/business/nouns/permission) there.

Its Actions, Memory and Mailbox history stay on the record, credited to it. To replace it, staff the seat with another Agent or a person: [buy a specialist agent](/agents/buy-a-specialist-agent-for-a-seat) or [invite a person](/agents/invite-a-person-to-a-role).

## Guides
Say "pause every agent that talks to customers" and the [guide](/agents/pause-customer-facing-agents) does it, with your reason on the record.