# Transcripts

> Decide whether By Dawn keeps a log of each agent session, for how long, and how you read a past run on a ticket.

This page explains session transcripts: the log of everything an agent did in a run on a ticket. By the end you'll
know how your organization decides whether transcripts are kept, how a project narrows that for itself, and where you
read a past run.

A **transcript** is the record of one agent session: what it read, ran and wrote, turn by turn. While an agent works
you watch it live on the ticket. Once it stops, the transcript is how you look back at what happened, for example to
see why a run took the path it did.

## Store, serve or neither

Three settings decide what happens to a session once the agent stops:

- **Store transcripts**: By Dawn keeps each session's log. It's end-to-end encrypted, so only your organization's
  devices can open it, not By Dawn's servers.
- **Keep transcripts for**: how many days a stored transcript is kept before it's deleted for good.
- **Serve on demand when storage is off**: with storing off, you can still read a finished session by streaming it
  from the machine that ran it. Nothing is kept: the copy you load is temporary.

Out of the box, storing is off and serving on demand is on, so a past run is read straight from its machine, and
only while that machine is online.

## Your organization's policy

An org owner sets these for the whole organization on the **Session transcripts** card in
**Settings › Organization › Security**. [Session transcripts](https://docs.bydawn.com/security/#session-transcripts) covers
each setting there, the window your plan allows and **Delete all transcripts**.

## A project's settings

A project can narrow the organization's policy for itself, never widen it. Open
**Settings › This project › Transcripts**. Each row shows the value in force and where it comes from:
**Inherited from organization**, **Built-in default**, or the project's own override.

| Row | What it decides |
|---|---|
| **Storing sessions** | **Store transcripts** or **Don't store transcripts** for this project. |
| **Keep transcripts for** | A window no longer than the organization's, such as 7, 14 or 30 days. |
| **Serving on demand** | **Serve on demand from the machine** or **Don't serve from the machine**. |

Narrowing means a project can turn storing or serving off, or keep transcripts for less time, but can't turn on
something the organization has off. A row the organization has off says so, "Off for the organization, so it can't
be turned on here.", and offers only off. That way a project with sensitive work can keep less than everyone else,
while the organization's limit still holds everywhere.

Project admins and org admins can change these rows. Other members see them read-only, with "Only project admins and
org admins can change these."

## Read a past run

On a ticket that has run, the run chip in the header above the agent's session opens **Session history**: every run on the
ticket, newest first, with **Current run** pinned at the top while one is going. Pick a run to open it. The pane
shows **Past run**, and **Back to current run** returns you to the live session if there is one.

What a run shows depends on the policy when it ran:

- **Stored**: it opens straight away. Choose **Replay** to play it back turn by turn, with **Pause**, **Resume**
  and **Skip to end**.
- **Loadable**: it wasn't stored, but its machine can serve it. Choose **Load transcript**, and By Dawn asks the machine
  to stream it. If the machine is offline, the button waits and reads **Machine offline** until it's back.
- **Unavailable**: there's nothing to read. A stored transcript past its window says "This transcript has expired
  and its contents were permanently deleted."

> **Note:** A stored transcript is encrypted for your organization's devices, so it opens in the By Dawn app you're signed in to.
> Nobody can read it from By Dawn's servers.

## FAQ

**Why does a run say on-demand serving is off?**

The run wasn't stored, and serving is off for the organization or the project, so there's nowhere to read it from.
Turn on storing or serving for future runs. A run that was neither stored nor served can't be read later.

**Does shortening the window delete transcripts already stored?**

Transcripts older than the new window are deleted when By Dawn next clears out expired ones, so check before you shorten
it.

**Can a member turn storing on for one project?**

Only within the organization's policy, and only a project admin or org admin can. If the organization has storing
off, no project can turn it on.

## Where to go next

- [Remote agents and machines](https://docs.bydawn.com/remote-agents/): the machines that serve a transcript on demand.
- [Start a ticket](https://docs.bydawn.com/start-a-ticket/): what happens on a ticket while its agent runs.

Source: https://docs.bydawn.com/transcripts/