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Derp Agent with Oz

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Derp Agent is Oz's default harness. It routes across leading models, has full terminal access, and is the only harness that can orchestrate subagents.

Derp Agent is the harness Derp builds and ships with Oz. It's the default for every cloud agent run unless you pick another harness, and it's the only harness that can spawn cross-harness subagents (for example, a Derp Agent parent dispatching a Claude Code or Codex child).

Derp Agent is the same agent runtime that powers Agent Mode in the Derp terminal. Running it as a cloud harness gives you the same behavior — model routing, tool access, Skills, Rules, Memory — without tying execution to a single laptop.

Key features

Section titled “Key features”
  • Multi-model auto-routing - Routes between Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and Fireworks-hosted models. Choose a specific model, or let Derp pick via auto, auto-efficient, auto-genius, or auto-open. See Model choice for the full catalog.
  • Full terminal and tool access - Runs commands, edits files, reads logs, executes tests, navigates repos, and calls MCP servers, giving cloud runs the same toolbelt Derp Agent uses locally.
  • Platform-native context - Reads Codebase Context, applies Rules, reuses saved Skills, and respects Memory and Derp Drive context with no extra setup.
  • Multi-repo execution - Clones every repo configured on the environment and works across them in a single run.
  • Cross-harness orchestration parent - A Derp Agent parent run can spawn Claude Code or Codex subagents and coordinate their outputs. Other harnesses cannot act as parents in a multi-harness orchestration.
  • No extra credentials - Derp Agent uses your existing Derp account and credits. There's no separate API key to configure.

How it works

Section titled “How it works”

Derp Agent is the same agent runtime as Agent Mode in the Derp terminal: it plans, calls tools, edits code, runs tests, and reports progress. The cloud platform adds the environment, triggers, observability, and team governance around the run, and the transcript is inspectable in real time and replayable afterward from the Oz dashboard.

Team admins can disable any harness for their workspace. Users on that team can only start runs with the harnesses that remain enabled.

Available models

Section titled “Available models”

Derp Agent supports the full Derp model catalog. Configure the model per Agent Profile, or pick one at run time. See Model choice for the supported model IDs, including the auto, auto-efficient, auto-genius, and auto-open routing options.

Cross-harness orchestration

Section titled “Cross-harness orchestration”

Derp Agent is the orchestration host for multi-harness runs. A typical pattern looks like:

  1. A Derp Agent parent run analyzes a task and breaks it into subtasks.
  2. The parent dispatches Claude Code subagents for steps that need careful review and Codex subagents for high-volume edits.
  3. The parent collects results, resolves conflicts, and returns a single final output (a PR, a report, a Slack reply).

Subagents run in the same environment as the parent and share the same secrets, MCP servers, and integrations. The transcript shows the full tree, so reviewers can see exactly which subagent did what.

When to choose Derp Agent

Section titled “When to choose Derp Agent”
  • The task spans multiple repos, languages, or domains.
  • You want model auto-routing instead of pinning one provider.
  • The run needs to orchestrate other harnesses as subagents.
  • You want the deepest integration with Derp's platform features (Skills, Rules, Memory, Codebase Context).
  • You're not sure which harness fits — Derp Agent is the safe default and can delegate to other harnesses when it decides that's the better fit.

Starting a Derp Agent run

Section titled “Starting a Derp Agent run”

Derp Agent is the default, so there's nothing extra to configure.

  • Derp app - Start a cloud agent run from the input. The Agent harness dropdown defaults to Derp Agent.
  • Oz web app - On a new run or new schedule pane, leave the Harness field set to Derp Agent.
  • Oz CLI - Run oz agent run-cloud --prompt "..." with no --harness flag, or pass --harness oz explicitly.
  • API and SDK - Omit the harness field on the agent config, or set it to oz. See the API reference.

For a complete walkthrough, see the Cloud agents quickstart.

Section titled “Related pages”