# How roles work

> The agent and curator roles in full: what each may do without you, and how the curator role is granted.

Page: https://docs.memex.tools/roles

## Agent

Agent is the default and the review gate in full: new notes pending, edits held, deletes and merges held. An agent can read everything, including the inbox and the curation queue, and can file anything; nothing it files applies until you approve it.

## Curator

Curator is for a connection you trust to work unattended. A curator's new notes land verified. Its edits apply immediately when they are precise (an anchored find-and-replace, a new title, tags or description), and each applied edit is recorded in Activity with the diff.

The exception is instructions: a new note tagged `skill` or `user-profile`, any change to a note carrying either tag, and adding or removing either tag all wait for you, because they change what every other assistant is told. A curator that replaces a whole note body is held anyway, because a whole-body rewrite is exactly what needs eyes. A curator may also choose to hold an edit it is unsure about. Its deletes and merges are always held.

Curators can also record curation passes in the journal, read the journal to learn from your past verdicts, and close the flags you raise; agents cannot.

## Granting it

**Settings › Assistants** › **Note maintenance** › **Choose a curator**: choose an assistant and press **Make curator**. The text there says exactly what changes. **Remove role** takes the role away.

Only you, from a browser, can grant or remove the role. No token can change a role, including its own, and connections made through an assistant's sign-in never arrive with the role even if the assistant asks for it. `health` tells an assistant which role it holds.

## Related

- [Agent or curator](https://docs.memex.tools/agents-and-curators): What an assistant may change without you, depending on its role.
- [Make a curator](https://docs.memex.tools/make-a-curator): Let one assistant save new notes and edits without waiting for your approval.
- [How the review gate works](https://docs.memex.tools/review-gate): What happens to new notes, edits, reports, deletes and merges an assistant files, and the one role that skips part of it.