The Surveyor, which keeps the manor in repair

What the Surveyor checks every hour (Castellan, every agent, and the PC), how it reports what it finds, the daily report, and its settings. It reads, and never changes anything.

Article: 2501
Applies to: Surveyor 0.4.24
Last reviewed: October 9, 2026
For: For everyone

Written for Surveyor 0.4.24. Surveyor is at 0.4.25 now (1 small release since: what changed).

What the Surveyor does#

The surveyor walked the estate, wrote down the state of every building and field, and said what to mend. The Surveyor walks your PC and your staff.

Every hour it checks that Castellan, every agent and the PC are working, and lists what it finds, in plain words with the evidence beside them. It only reads. It never restarts, deletes or installs anything: where a fix is a command, it gives it to you to copy.

Castellan shows what it finds under Repairs, and a problem that hasn't cleared after six hours is one of the things that need you.

The Surveyor comes with the Household license.

What it checks#

Check	What it finds
Castellan	Its page not answering, an install or update that failed, updates out, roles left vacant.
The staff	An agent whose page doesn't answer, whose rounds have stopped coming, or whose last round failed, and errors in its logs in the last day.
The PC	A drive running out of space, a worn battery, a restart Windows is waiting for, days without a restart, the AI chip's driver, restore points, File History and OneDrive.
Windows Update	Updates waiting, and ones that failed. It never starts a search: it reads Windows' last one.
App updates	Apps with a newer version, from the Thatcher's list when it's hired. It installs nothing.

Each check runs on its own: one that fails shows as a warning, and the rest carry on.

Problems, warnings and notes#

Each finding is one of three:

Problem: something is broken.
Warning: it needs a look soon.
Note: worth knowing.

A drive is a warning below 15% free and a problem below 5%. A finding keeps the time it was first seen while it lasts, and goes as soon as it clears: every 5 minutes, the Surveyor looks again at what it can, and takes what has cleared off the list without waiting for the next round.

The local AI's part#

When no other agent wants the local AI, it puts the Surveyor's findings into plain words:

What the evidence says, beside a problem: what failed, and the one thing to check first. The Surveyor's code chooses that advice; the AI only sorts the error.
The daily report, after 8 in the morning: what ran, what failed, what's waiting. The facts it was written from are shown beside it, and a report that drops or changes a fact is set aside for the facts themselves.
What's new in each update Castellan has found, for its update cards.

Each is labelled with where it was written ("note from the NPU, unverified", say). Code makes every finding: without the local AI, every check still runs, and the report is the facts. See Set up the local AI.

Its page#

The Surveyor's page is at http://surveyor.localhost:19595/, and Open on its card in Castellan goes there. See Read and act on the Surveyor's findings.

Its settings#

Setting	Default	What it does
Checks	All on	Which checks run.
The daily report at	08:00	The first round after it each day writes the day's report.
Plain-words notes	On	The local AI's words. Off, every finding is still there.
A round every (Advanced)	60 minutes	10 minutes to a day.
Model calls per round (Advanced)	8	0 turns the local AI off.
When to speak up (Advanced)	15%, 5%, 70%, 14 days, 14 days	Free space for a warning and a problem; the battery's health for a warning; days without a restore point; days without a restart.

What it can't do#

It reads; you act. It runs none of its fixes.
Log errors are found by their words (error, failed and the like): a failure that says none of them isn't seen.
Restore points are read from Windows' log, since listing them needs an administrator.
Windows Update is as of Windows' own last check.
The AI is small: its words are suggestions, to check against the evidence beside them. The facts are always code's.

Is this page right?

If something on it is wrong or out of date, tell us and we'll fix the page.

Still stuck? Write to support@castellan-software.com and mention article 2501. Every version of Surveyor, and what changed in it, is in its release notes.