Goal Mode (Autopilot)

Goal mode enables Pando to pursue a persistent objective autonomously across multiple agent turns, without requiring user input after each step. The agent iterates, evaluates its own progress, and continues until the goal is achieved, blocked, or cancelled.

Starting Goal Mode

Use the /goal slash command in TUI, Web UI, or ACP mode:

/goal <objective description>

You can also use the alias:

/autopilot <objective description>

Monitoring Progress

While a goal is running, Pando displays a dedicated status component showing:

• Status badge with animated spinner (running, completed, failed, blocked, timeout, stalled, cancelled)
• Objective text
• Iteration counter (e.g., “Iteration 3/20”)
• Elapsed time
• Progress text
• Next step description

Check status at any time with:

/goal-status

Cancelling a Goal

Cancel the running goal with:

/goal-cancel

Or press Ctrl+C while a goal is active (this cancels the goal instead of exiting Pando).

How It Works

1. The GoalRunner creates a goal record in the database
2. Each iteration sends the goal prompt to the agent
3. A HeuristicGoalEvaluator analyzes the response for completion, blocking, or stalling
4. Progress is recorded and the loop continues until a terminal state is reached

Terminal states: completed, failed, cancelled, blocked, timeout, stalled

Configuration

[Goal]
MaxIterations = 20       # Maximum iterations (0 = default 20)
MaxDuration = '1h'       # Go duration string
StallIterations = 3      # Consecutive no-progress before stalled
AutoApprove = true       # Auto-approve tool calls during goal mode
DangerousPatterns = []   # Patterns to block in goal mode

Non-Interactive Goal Mode

From the command line, use the --goal flag for fully autonomous execution:

pando --goal "Fix all failing tests in the project"
pando --goal "Refactor auth module" --model copilot.gpt-5.4

The CLI returns a structured result with session ID, objective, status, iteration count, and progress.