# Teams

> Set up a team, choose its workspace, add members with the right roles, share saved work, and manage a pooled credit balance with weekly spending caps.

Source: https://kaitoi.io/docs/studio/teams/
Section: Kaitoi Studio / Projects, files and teams
Written for: Team members and people responsible for a team workspace.
Last reviewed: 2026-10-24

---

A team gives people a shared place for projects and files, with roles that
control what each member can do. Eligible team work spends from the team's
credit balance. Your Personal workspace keeps its own projects, files, and
balance.

Start in **Settings → Account → Teams**. This is separate from the workspace
selector in **Node Packages**, which organizes custom code.

## Set up a team

1. Enter a name in **New team** and press the **+** button, labelled **Create
   team**. Creating it also makes it your active workspace; choose **Personal**
   to go back to your own work.
2. The new team starts as a **Setup shell**. You can prepare it before adding
   other people.
3. As the owner, choose **Open Studio** to open Plans for that team. Adding
   members requires an active team Studio subscription and an available seat.
   **Open Studio** and **Manage Seats** also activate that team's workspace.
4. Check **Plan** and **seats used** before adding people. Every member,
   including the owner and viewers, counts toward the seat limit. If the seats
   are full, the owner can use **Manage Seats**.

Team Studio starts at two seats. Added seats apply immediately with proration;
reductions take effect next billing period. Plans shows the allowed seat range
and any scheduled change.

The subscription belongs to the team. A personal subscription does not activate
a team shell. If the team subscription becomes inactive, members other than
the owner are blocked from using that workspace.

## Choose where to work

Select a team in the Teams list to inspect its members and billing. To work in
it, choose **Team** in the Personal/Team switch, press **Use Workspace**, or
double-click the team in the list. The action button then reads **Using**.
Choose **Personal** to return to your own workspace.


Selecting a team for inspection does not activate its workspace. In this
example, Northstar Studio remains selected while Personal is active. Choosing
Team or Use Workspace activates Northstar Studio and changes the action label
to Using. Choosing Personal switches back. The example team has three members
and four Studio seats. New projects and Save As copies made now belong to the
active workspace. Switching does not move existing projects or files. Creating
a team or opening its plan also activates that team's workspace.

*Figure: The workspace switch and selected team in Teams settings, shown with fictional data.*

Create a new project in the intended workspace, or choose the workspace before
**Save As** to create a separate saved copy there. Switching the workspace
does not transfer an existing project or merge its files. A team badge near the
bottom-right of Studio identifies the active team; select it to reopen Teams
settings.

## Add members and choose roles

The person must already have a Kaitoi account. Enter their **User ID or
username**, choose a role, and press **Add**. Membership is added directly;
this field is not an email invitation form.

| Role   | Working with team resources | Managing people                                                                           |
| ------ | --------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Owner  | Read, edit, and run         | Manage members, admins, and weekly caps; manage the team subscription and delete the team |
| Admin  | Read, edit, and run         | Add and manage editors and viewers, including their weekly caps                           |
| Editor | Read, edit, and run         | No member-management controls                                                             |
| Viewer | Read                        | Cannot save changes, write team files, or run team graphs                                 |

Only the owner can grant admin access or change an admin's role, membership, or
cap. The owner cannot be reassigned through the member role menu.

For a member you can manage, use the role menu to change access or the trash
icon, labelled **Remove member**, to remove them. Select one or more manageable
members to reveal **Apply role** and **Weekly cap** bulk actions. Removing a
member removes their team access; it does not turn team-owned work into that
person's personal work.

To leave as an editor or viewer, ask the owner or an admin to remove you. An
admin needs the owner to remove them. Team ownership cannot be transferred
through Teams settings. The owner cannot leave the team; closing it requires
the deletion steps below.

## Share saved projects and files

Open team projects from the team's project list. In **Files**, choose Personal
or the named team tab to see that library. Check the source and destination in
a move or copy dialog: copying a readable file and moving it out of a library
can require different permissions. Changing the active workspace alone does
neither.

An open project is still your working copy. When a teammate explicitly saves a
newer version, Studio can show a notice that a newer version has been saved:

- **Load latest** opens the saved version and replaces the copy open here. The
  reload asks for confirmation and protects the replaced work with a seven-day
  safety copy first. If protection fails, nothing is replaced.
- **Keep mine** keeps this open copy and dismisses that saved version's notice.
  It does not overwrite the teammate's save. An even newer save can show the
  notice again.

Team membership does not continuously synchronize everyone's unsaved edits.
Save useful milestones and resolve a save conflict before continuing to write
over shared work. See [Saving and recovery](/docs/studio/saving-and-recovery/).

## Understand the shared balance

Team-attributed work uses a pooled team credit balance. Owners and admins can
inspect the team's balance and its included/PAYG breakdown. Other members see
their own allowance and usage. A member's weekly cap limits that member's
spending; setting a cap does not allocate a separate pot of credits.

With the intended team active, the owner can open **Settings → Account →
Billing → Add Funds** to add PAYG credits. Use **Account → Plans** for the
team subscription and seats. Check the team name before starting either flow.


Suppose a team has 500 available credits. Its owner is uncapped (shown as
**Unlimited**), one editor has
a weekly cap of 100 credits, and another editor has a cap of 200 credits. All
draw on the same balance for eligible team work. Those caps do not reserve 300
credits or create personal balances. The uncapped owner is still limited by
the team's available balance. The illustration's bars compare each cap with
this example balance; they show neither spending nor reserved credits.

*Figure: A conceptual example, rather than an app screenshot: one shared balance, with separate limits on each member's spending.*

To change a member's limit, open **Cap** beside a member you can manage, enter
a whole-credit **Weekly cap**, and choose **Set**. **Clear** removes the cap,
shown as **Unlimited**;
zero also means uncapped. The owner is always uncapped. For one or more members,
select their rows and use **Weekly cap → Set** or **Clear**.

Caps use UTC calendar weeks, starting Monday. **Spent** reports attributed
usage; **Remaining** is the allowance still available under the cap. In-flight
work can affect headroom, so do not calculate permission to run from Spent
alone. A job can be refused if its required allowance exceeds the member's
remaining cap or the team's available credits. A cap is not a promise that a
provider operation will cost exactly its estimate.

## Recover work or close a team

Backups and safety copies are private to the user who made them. To recover a
team project's copy, first make that team your active workspace. **Open as
copy** creates a separate recovered project; a recovered team-owned copy needs
team write access and is then visible under the team's permissions.

Only the owner can delete a team. If it has a subscription, cancel it and
resolve any subscription blocker first. Before deletion, delete its projects,
delete or move its Files, and revoke active team shared projects/apps. Deletion
removes the team workspace for every member. Preserve any work you need before
using **Delete team**.

## When a control is unavailable

| What you see                 | What to check                                                                                    |
| ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| User not found               | Use the existing account's username or user ID, rather than an email address.                    |
| Studio unlocks team members  | The selected team needs its own active Studio subscription.                                      |
| No Studio seats available    | Ask the owner to increase the team's seats.                                                      |
| No editable role or cap menu | Check your role and the target member's role; admins cannot manage other admins or the owner.    |
| A run is refused             | Check team write access, subscription status, available credits, and remaining weekly allowance. |