Run a task
A Air Teams task runs in a cloud environment instead of on your machine. Start it in the browser at https://air.jetbrains.cloud or from Air in IDEs.
Every task gets its own cloud environment, so you can run as many tasks at once as you need, and they never touch each other's files. Start another one with New Task while the others keep working.
What happens to your changes
A cloud environment has a limited lifetime. Air Teams suspends it after a period of inactivity and archives the task a day later, so nothing that lives only inside the environment is safe. To make the result durable, Air Teams doesn't wait for you: it commits what the agent produced to a separate task branch and pushes that branch to the remote repository.
This happens after every agent turn, not once at the end. A task you send back twice with feedback leaves three commits on its branch. Nothing is staged for you to accept, and nothing is left uncommitted for you to review before it lands – by the time you open the task, the change is already on the server.
What this leaves you is review and iteration. You read the result, comment on it, and let the agent answer – which adds another commit – until the branch is what you want. Then you open a pull request from it.
Edits you make yourself
Files you add or change by hand aren't part of that. They stay uncommitted, and you commit them yourself from the Changes tool.
Do that before you send the next prompt. The agent's next commit takes everything in the working tree, so your edits go in with the agent's under the agent's commit message if you leave them uncommitted.
Before you start
You can start with the default cloud environment, but for many projects it is useful to configure the environment first.
To run tasks in the browser, you must first configure a repository connection. Without it, you cannot select a repository. Learn how to connect repositories.
If your project needs specific dependencies, environment variables, secrets, or integrations, create an environment configuration for the repository in advance. Learn how to configure environments.
Run a task
Run a cloud task from the browser
Log in to https://air.jetbrains.cloud with your JetBrains Account.
On the New Task page, define the task and send it: the repository or environment, the agent and model, the permission mode, and the prompt. See Define a task.
After the task starts, it appears in the Tasks list. Open it to follow the agent's progress in the chat. The page loads the Air Teams editor, with the project files, the diff, and a terminal alongside the conversation.
Steer the agent while it works. Prompts you send before it finishes join the prompt queue, and the context window indicator next to the task input shows how much room the task has left.
When the agent finishes a turn, review what it committed and send feedback until the branch is what you want. See Review changes.
The task branch is already pushed, so open a pull request from it – see Create a pull request.
Run a task on several repositories
A task can work on more than one repository at once. Use it when the work spans code that lives apart – for example, a service and its clients, or an application and a repository of shared configuration. Air Teams clones all the repositories into one cloud environment, and the agent works across them.
- How a multi-repository task works
The first repository is the primary one – the environment is set up for it, and the other repositories are cloned next to it every time the environment starts.
Each repository gets its own folder – the repositories are cloned side by side into /workspaces/<repository>, and the agent starts in /workspaces. Because the folder is named after the repository, you can't combine two repositories with the same name, such as a fork and its upstream.
Providers can differ – a GitHub repository can sit next to a GitLab one. You need access to every repository you add.
Each repository has its own branch – you can check out any branch in any repository. The task creates a task branch with the same generated name in each repository, and after every agent turn, Air Teams commits the changes to each repository separately.
The tools show every repository – Files lists each repository as its own root, with a filter to narrow the tree to one. History shows one repository at a time, and its branches, commits, and Git actions follow the repository you select. The terminal opens in /workspaces. This works the same when the environment isn't running.
Repositories only – a task combines repositories, not environments. An environment configuration holds one repository.
Repository limit – you can add up to 10 repositories next to the primary one.
- Startup scripts, MCP servers, and skills
Every repository can have its own setup and agent files. Air Teams handles them as follows:
Startup scripts – the startup script (.air/cloud/startup.sh) of every repository runs before the agent starts. Run order is undefined.
MCP servers – Air Teams combines the .mcp.json servers from all repositories, and the agent gets each of them alongside your connectors. Give servers unique names across the repositories to avoid conflicts.
Skills – skills from all repositories are available to the agent. As with MCP servers, keep skill names unique across the repositories.
Instructions and commands – files such as AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md, and custom commands, aren't combined. They stay in their repository, and the agent starts above all of them, so don't count on them for rules that apply to the whole run. Put those in the task definition or the automation's Instructions.
Start a task on several repositories
On the New Task page, click the repository selector.
Next to Repositories, click Select Multiple.
Select the checkbox next to each repository the task needs. The first one you select is the primary repository.
To clear the selection, click Reset. To go back to a single repository or an environment, click Select One.
In the branch selector, choose the branch to check out in each repository.
Describe and start the task. Tell the agent which repository holds what and which ones it should change.
The changes are committed to each repository separately, and the Changes tool groups the commits and changed files by repository.
To open a pull request, click Create PR in the task header, and then click Create PR next to the repository. Each repository gets its own pull request, so repeat this for every repository you want to merge.
Run a task from Air in IDEs
In a JetBrains IDE, Air in IDEs can run an agent in the cloud instead of on your machine. The run uses the same cloud environments as a task you start in the browser, and it continues after you close the IDE. Use it when you want to offload a long or resource-intensive task and keep working in the project you have open.
Run a cloud task in Air in IDEs
Make sure the branch you work on is pushed: the cloud environment is created from the remote repository, so uncommitted changes and local-only commits aren't available to the agent.
Start a new agent session in the IDE.
In the run mode list above the text field, select Cloud. Optionally, select an environment configuration next to it.
Select the agent and model, write your request, and send it.
The run appears in the IDE like a local session, and tasks you start in the browser appear in the IDE's Agent Sessions tool window too. For requirements and details, see Run an agent in the cloud.
Resume a suspended task
After 75 minutes of inactivity, Air Teams suspends the task's cloud environment and marks the task Suspended. Your results are safe on the task branch, and you can start the environment again while the task stays suspended.
Resume a suspended task
Open the suspended cloud task.
Click Resume. Air Teams starts the environment again, and you can continue reviewing or working on the task.
The environment returns as it was, with the working tree, installed packages, and caches. Running processes are the exception, so restart servers, watchers, and anything else the task had running. See Snapshots and preserved state.
You can resume a task only while it stays suspended. After 24 hours of inactivity, Air Teams archives the task – you can still open it to view the chat history, but Resume is no longer available, because the environment can't be restarted. Your results remain on the task branch. See Cloud environment lifecycle.