# Create and change a member

An agent drafts a crew member's charter and settings, and you add it from a card. Charter changes, settings and archiving work the same way.

*Where in Studio: Studio → the + under the crew avatars, or any chat*

*Last updated: 2026-11-06*

Nothing about a crew member is saved until you approve it. An agent drafts the member, Studio shows you everything it would save on one card, and the member exists only after you add it.

## Create a member

1. **Open the builder**

   Click the dashed **+** under the crew avatars. With no crew yet, a **Meet your crew** card offers **Create a crew member**. You can also ask any chat for one, for example "make a crew member that drafts our release notes every Friday".

2. **Describe the job**

   Pick an example under **Start from an example** (Deployer, Release notes, Dependency watch, Reviewer) or describe the job yourself. The builder asks one question at a time through four steps: **Job**, **Where** (project and device), **Access** and **Review**. Its header shows the draft so far, with the settings still missing drawn dashed.

3. **Approve the card**

   At **Review** the agent proposes the member on a card: name, one-line job, project, device, model and reasoning, access, checkout and the full charter. Pick its icon and color on the card if you like, then click **Add to crew**. Until then nothing is saved.

## What you can set

| Setting | Choices |
| --- | --- |
| Project | One project, or none. A project member runs on the project's computer. |
| Model and reasoning | Any model of its agent, as in the composer. |
| Access | The access levels its agent can enforce. See [Access levels](https://kelrova.com/docs/studio/chats/access). |
| Checkout | **Main checkout**, or **New worktree each session** for a code project. |
| Sessions | **One at a time** (a new request waits while one runs) or **Several**. |
| Inbox wait | How long requests gather into one batch: **At once**, 30 s, 2 min (the default), 5 min or 15 min. |
| Other chats | **Off** by default; **On** lets its sessions read and message your open chats. |
| Directory | **Listed** lets your other chats find and ask it; **Hidden** leaves it out of their list. |
| Auto-approve | Off by default. See [Requests and approval](https://kelrova.com/docs/studio/crew/inbox#auto-approve). |

Open the member's **Settings** page to change these. Each pick saves at once and applies to new sessions; the project and device follow the project and are read-only there.

## Change the charter

The charter changes only through a card you approve:

1. On the member's Charter page, choose **Change charter…** and describe the change, or ask a session of the member to change its own charter.
2. The member proposes a new charter. The card shows the change against the current revision, line by line.
3. Click **Apply change**. The charter's revision goes up by one, and the Charter page's history lists every revision with its diff.

A card made for an older revision, or for a member hosted on another device, shows no apply button. It says why and offers to ask for a new proposal or to open the member in Crew.

A session that started on an older charter says so above its composer; your next message there uses the current charter.

## Archive and restore

Archive a member from the last row of its Settings page, or approve an archive card a chat proposed. An archived member takes no new sessions or requests, a running session finishes, and its pending requests are declined; its memory and notes are kept. **Restore** it from **Manage crew** or its pages.

## Related

- [What Crew is](https://kelrova.com/docs/studio/crew/overview)
- [Sessions, memory and schedules](https://kelrova.com/docs/studio/crew/sessions)
- [Access levels](https://kelrova.com/docs/studio/chats/access)
- [Models, reasoning and accounts](https://kelrova.com/docs/studio/chats/models)