Operation modes

Control how Arka behaves — agent, ask, plan, debug, and multitask modes.

Arka supports operation modes that change routing verbosity, write permissions, and execution style. Default is agent (debug is off).

Modes

Mode	Behavior
agent	Default — full skill execution, clean output
ask	Read-only; risky actions blocked
plan	Structured steps printed, no execution
debug	Shows routing traces, LLM fallback, vLLM status
multitask	Background sub-agents for parallel work

Switch modes

arka mode debug
arka mode agent
arka mode list

Or set in ~/.config/arka/.env:

ARKA_MODE=agent

Plan mode workflow example

Use plan mode to sketch slide design work before exporting a deck:

arka mode plan
arka "improve pitch slide design for kubernetes networking"

Arka prints a structured plan (audit palettes, spacing, footers, metric callouts) without running compose_slides. Switch back to execute:

arka mode agent
compose_slides compose --topic "kubernetes networking" --style pitch --theme dark -f pptx

Or one-shot with the environment override:

ARKA_MODE=plan arka "compose slides about kubernetes --style pitch"

See Compose slides for style and theme options.

What debug mode shows

Only in debug mode:

• arka_llm: fallback ok → groq/...
• → Interpreted: ... / ▶ Running skill: ...
• vLLM / Ollama server startup messages
• Self-improve full pytest output and goal-agent context

Normal mode keeps output clean for non-developers.

Route mode (separate)

ROUTE_MODE controls how requests are routed, not execution style:

Value	Behavior
symbolic	Offline rules first, LLM fallback (recommended)
ai_only	LLM routing first
symbolic_only	Never call LLM for routing

ROUTE_MODE=symbolic

See How routing works.