> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.open-hive.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Colonies

> Teams of agents working toward a single goal, led by a queen.

A **colony** is a team of agents working toward one goal, led by a
[queen](/concepts/queens). Colonies are where work actually happens in OpenHive.

Each colony has:

* **A goal** — the objective it was created with, seeded from your original request.
* **A lead queen** — the specialist who owns the work.
* **Its own chat view** — where agents report progress and ask you questions.
* **Sessions** — the individual runs of execution. See [Sessions](/concepts/sessions).

## Creating a colony

There are three ways:

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Describe a goal on the home screen">
    Type what you want done into the prompt box. OpenHive routes it to the right queen
    and creates a colony automatically. Type `/` to attach a skill to the request.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Deploy from the prompt library">
    Browse proven prompts and choose **Deploy as a new colony** to start one already
    configured for that workflow.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Create it directly">
    Use the **+** control next to **Colonies** in the sidebar to create one yourself and
    assign the queen.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Working with a running colony

Colonies do long-running work, so they're built to be left alone and checked on. Agents
post progress into the colony chat as they go, and stop to ask when a step needs your
judgment — approving a list of targets, or confirming a campaign before it sends.

Every colony shows a live status so you can tell at a glance which ones are working,
which are waiting on you, and which are done. The same statuses appear in the
[Org Chart](/configuration/org-chart), which is the fastest way to see everything
running across every queen at once.