# Launched, claimed and unmanaged work

Fleet Console distinguishes work the controller launched from work it merely knows about. A row in the registry is not sufficient evidence of signalling authority.

## Three management classes

| Class | How the record arises | Controller control |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Controller-launched | A new process starts through `fleetctl launch` | Verified service-control actions and lease cleanup |
| Claimed | An existing process is recorded with `fleetctl claim` | Observation and attribution, not signalling |
| Unmanaged | Work was started outside controller supervision | No controller stop, restart, pause or kill |

A claim adds an owner, purpose, lease and event timeline. It does not transform an already-running process into one the controller started. An expired claim is reported and left alone rather than reaped. Output from a claimed process still goes where it was originally launched; claiming cannot retroactively capture its stdout or stderr.

## Inspect without changing ownership

With the bundled CLI on PATH, inspect the current inventory and its recorded grouping:

```bash
fleetctl list --json
fleetctl agents --json
```

Review output locally before sharing it: commands, paths, ports and agent names can identify private work. An agent label reports who requested or was assigned the work; it does not prove that the human owner approved a disruptive action.

## Why PID identity matters

A PID can be recycled after a process exits. Before signalling controller-launched work, the controller verifies the PID, recorded start time and process group. A refusal is not an invitation to bypass the guard with a raw signal. Reinspect the current process and service record instead.

The [CLI documentation](https://github.com/janestreetshiller/fleet-console/blob/87c38aff663db2e0c70e90eea5c8781ceb32a1e4/docs/CLI.md#fleetctl-claim-pidunmanaged-id---name-s---owner-a---purpose-why---lease-1h) explains why claiming buys visibility without authority. Use [service logs](/docs/fleet-console/read-service-logs-and-events) to review what the controller actually recorded.