AI agents

What an agent can do

Anything a person with the same role could do on the screens: list who is waiting, open a result (as bands, never a ranking), log a conversation, place someone, mark an introduction, save a ministry or a watch, find ministries for a gift, pull the gaps. For a new church it can interview you and set up everything, area by area. See Set up with your AI.

Someone the pastor met who isn't on the list yet can be looked up (find-person) and added (add-person). Adding them returns a personal link to the assessment, good for 90 days, that opens with their name and email filled in and joins the result to their record; the pastor passes it on by text or in person. An agent can also write one plain line on a person's growth timeline (add-timeline-event): a baptism, a class, a note. Not health, family or money details, and not what someone said in confidence.

Inside EmmauOS, pastors and up can ask the same read-only questions in Ask AI, at the bottom right of every screen. A pastor's agent can also compare gifts with Planning Center giving and groups (compare-gifts, list-groups), always as shares and never what one person gave, check what Planning Center access is missing (get-planning-center-access), and read groups, service plans, events and sign-ups live (read-planning-center).

A post someone shared. Instagram, Facebook and most other platforms refuse automated reads, so neither EmmauOS nor your assistant can open the link. Send your assistant a screenshot of every slide and paste the caption: it lists every figure with its label and slide, never guesses one that isn't shown, and can set them beside your own numbers in EmmauOS. In Ask AI, attach the screenshots to your question.

Telling us what's missing. When your assistant hits something it, EmmauOS or another platform can't do, it offers to tell the EmmauOS team (send-feedback). You see its words first and nothing is sent until you say yes. It says what you were trying to do and what stopped it, and never names anyone from your church. A person reads every note, on the same list as the Send feedback button.

Everything an agent does is a note for the team. It never contacts a member, never writes to Planning Center, and in the demo church every write is refused.

Pipelines and roles

An agent can read your Pipelines (get-pipelines), list your roles with each gap (list-roles), and open one to see who holds it, who is ready and who is growing, each with reasons (get-role). A pastor's agent can add or change a role (save-role) and record their own word on a quality such as character (attest-quality). who-knows returns who knows a person and a suggested note, with a link to send it from the role page: the agent prepares the ask and sends nothing. An agent never sees a pastors-only role unless it acts for a pastor, and never names someone who asked to be held back.

Every tool

Each tool stands in for a screen and needs the same role. A tool your connection's role can't use isn't offered to the assistant at all. Leader means leaders and up, Pastor pastors and up, Admin admins and owners.

Gifts and who is arriving

Tool	Who	What it does
get-gifts-overview	Leader	The whole-church picture, in counts: who is waiting for a first look, which gifts show up most, what people want to grow in.
get-gift-signals	Leader	What is arriving against each watch you keep (musicians, a heart for kids), whether it is rising, and the next step.
compare-gifts	Pastor	Whether people with a gift are a larger share of giving, givers, group leaders, teams or check-ins than of the people. Shares only, never anyone's giving.
list-groups	Pastor	Your Planning Center groups and who leads each.
get-planning-center-access	Pastor	What Planning Center access is missing, and whether to reconnect.
read-planning-center	Pastor	Planning Center right now, read-only: groups and who is in one, upcoming plans and who is scheduled, events and sign-ups. Never giving.
find-in-emmauos	Leader	The help page or screen for what you're looking for, as a link.
save-watch	Pastor	Start or change a watch for a kind of person arriving.
delete-watch	Pastor	Stop a watch.
list-introductions	Leader	Introductions worth making between people already here, each with a reason you could say out loud.
mark-introduction	Leader	Mark an introduction as made, not now, or open again.

Results and follow-up

Tool	Who	What it does
list-assessments	Leader	Who has taken the assessment, newest first: lead gifts as a band, follow-up status, teams they asked to try.
get-assessment	Leader	One result as a pastor sees it. What they wrote comes only when they agreed to share and your church allows it.
set-review-status	Leader	Move someone along the follow-up list, with an optional staff note.
find-person	Leader	Look someone up by name or email: stage, follow-up owner, latest result, placements, timeline.
add-person	Leader	Add a newcomer and get a personal link to the assessment for the pastor to pass on.
add-timeline-event	Leader	Write one plain line on a person's growth timeline.
log-conversation	Leader	Record that someone on the team had a follow-up conversation. Never what was said.
mark-walked-through	Leader	Record that you walked through their results with them.
assign-follow-up	Leader	Choose who on the team owns someone's follow-up.
place-person	Leader	Place someone on a ministry; EmmauOS asks in a month whether it took.
list-placements	Leader	Everyone placed, where, by whom, and whether it took.
update-placement	Leader	Answer whether a placement took, or take it off the list.

Ministries, teams and reading

Tool	Who	What it does
list-ministries	Pastor	Your ministries as people read them on results, plus suggestions waiting for a decision.
save-ministry	Pastor	Add or change a ministry.
delete-ministry	Pastor	Remove a ministry from results. Placements keep its name.
find-ministries	Pastor	Look for ministries on your website and in Planning Center. Results arrive as suggestions.
decide-ministry-suggestion	Pastor	Accept or dismiss a suggested ministry.
list-serving-teams	Leader	Your real serving teams, the gifts each needs, and who asked to try them.
save-serving-team	Admin	Change the gifts and audiences a team is suggested for.
refresh-serving-teams	Admin	Read the team list from Planning Center now.
get-gaps	Leader	Where you need people and who could serve, with why.
list-resources	Leader	Your reading list, with the tags each resource may use.
match-resources	Leader	The resources that best fit one person, with reasons.
save-resource	Pastor	Add or change a resource, and the roles and pathway steps that point people to it.
delete-resource	Pastor	Remove a resource.

Pathway, pipelines and roles

Tool	Who	What it does
get-pipelines	Leader	Each track's steps: how many are at each one, past it, finished, or quiet a long while, and who.
list-roles	Leader	Roles you need people for, with holders, target, gap and reviews due.
get-role	Leader	One role: who holds it, who is ready, who is growing toward it, each with reasons, and the resources linked from it.
save-role	Pastor	Add a role from a starter or by name, or change one.
save-role-people	Pastor	Say who holds a role now and who is learning it from whom. Nobody is told.
attest-quality	Leader	Record your own word that someone has a quality a role asks for, or take it back.
who-knows	Leader	Who knows a person well enough to ask, and a suggested note. Sends nothing.
get-pathway	Admin	Your pathway as the editor shows it: each track with its own stages, next steps (with the resources linked from each) and practices, and how many people are at each stage.
save-pathway	Admin	Save your whole pathway, from what you describe. Anything left out is retired, never deleted, and every save is a version you can restore in the Pathway editor.

Walking with

Offered only when walking with is on and your owner agreed to agents seeing walks.

Tool	Who	What it does
list-walks	Pastor	Who is walking with whom, and whether each walk is waiting, under way or ended.
suggest-walk	Pastor	Prepare a walk for a pastor to propose. Nothing is sent until the pastor sends it.
prepare-pairs	Pastor	Fill in discipleship pairs on Add a pair. Nobody is asked until the pastor presses Ask them.

Shaping the words of a walk is offered to pastors whether or not walking with is on. See Shape walks with your AI.

Tool	Who	What it does
get-walk-commitments	Pastor	The commitment each kind of walk uses now, the 2 sentences every one keeps, and any draft waiting.
draft-walk-commitment	Pastor	Draft your own commitment for one kind of walk. It waits on How walks work for an admin to accept.
get-walk-questions	Pastor	Every weekly question, EmmauOS's and your own, with why it's asked and when, and any drafts waiting.
draft-walk-questions	Pastor	Draft questions of your own for a set. Each waits for an admin to accept or dismiss.

Setup and moving data

Tool	Who	What it does
get-setup	Leader	Every area to set up, in order, with what is done, what to ask you and which tool does it.
update-church	Admin	Change your church's name, city, website or welcome line.
set-emphasis	Admin	Save how your church talks about gifts. It changes how results read, never the scoring.
set-brand	Admin	Set your accent color and a light or dark look. The logo and fonts stay on a screen.
prepare-team-invites	Admin	Get team invitations ready. Each waits on Team until someone presses Send.
set-digest	Admin	Turn on the weekly digest and choose its day, hour and timezone.
finish-onboarding	Admin	Mark setup as finished, so the app opens on the overview.
set-events-feed	Pastor	Save your website's event feed so signals can say what is coming up.
get-growth-areas	Leader	The "What would you love to grow in?" choices, and how many picked each.
get-growth-gaps	Pastor	Where people want to grow against the classes, events, groups and resources you offer for it, with each area's gap. Counts only.
find-groups	Pastor	The open Planning Center groups that fit one person, with why, or groups to launch as counts.
set-growth-areas	Admin	Replace those choices with your own list.
export-assessment	Pastor	Export an assessment and its results as portable JSON.
import-assessment	Pastor	Import from an EmmauOS export or the WordPress plugin. A dry run first, by default.
list-instruments	Pastor	The other assessments you keep, like APEST or SHAPE, and how many people have scores on each.
save-instrument	Admin	Add another assessment as its own, from your licensed copy. A dry run first, by default.
get-translations	Admin	Your own questions in an assessment and how far each language's translation is.
save-translations	Admin	Save translations of those questions into one language, once you've confirmed you may translate them.
import-instrument-results	Pastor	Bring in scores people already have, 500 rows at a time, matched by email. A dry run first, by default.
export-instrument-results	Pastor	Scores on another assessment, a page at a time.
import-people	Pastor	Add people in bulk, matched by email. A dry run first, by default.
export-people	Pastor	Your people list, a page at a time.
send-feedback	Leader	Tell the EmmauOS team what couldn't be done and what stopped it, once you've read and agreed to the words.

What an agent never gets

The same things a brief never gets, and more: the words of something I have walked through, how someone came to faith, what trusted people said in confirmations, any result or confirmation link, people who didn't share with the pastoral team, anyone who may be under 18. When something exists but is withheld, the agent is told so and told to suggest the pastor ask in person.

Connecting one

Sign in (Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor). Add EmmauOS as a custom connector with the address on Settings → AI agents (/mcp). The assistant opens EmmauOS's sign-in, you pick the church and press Allow, and the connection shows up on AI agents as (signed in). It renews itself while you use it and ends after 90 days without use. Nothing secret is pasted anywhere. During setup, Set up with your AI copies a prompt that does all of this for you.

A token (for assistants that can't sign in). New connection: a name (Claude on my laptop) and how long it lives (90 days by default, a year at most). The page shows the token once, and the one command to paste into Claude Code; any other client sends it as an Authorization: Bearer header.

Either way it acts as you, with your role as it is now. Revoke a connection anytime; everything it did is in the history under its name.

For the person running the assistant

The instructions tell the assistant how EmmauOS wants results read: bands, margins, no maturity scores, no single-gift labels. If your assistant starts ranking people's gifts, that is the assistant ignoring them, and the pastor should still have the conversation.