Running CareerRat for someone else

You can run CareerRat for another person. Each person gets their own workspace, so what one person saves never shows up in another's. --for <name> is the switch.

Set someone up

careerrat people add david --authorized-by "David" --purpose "help with his job search"
careerrat --for david start
careerrat --for david tui
careerrat people list

--for <name> works on every command. Add --new to create the workspace on the spot: careerrat --for david --new start.

Adding a person writes a short authorization note in their data: who authorized you, what it is for, when, and who recorded it. Leave the flags off and it says "not stated". Run people add again with the flags to add the real answer; the earlier entries stay.

What stays separate

Each person has their own database, evidence, tracker, search runs, browser profile, generated documents and saved AI key. Documents go to ~/Documents/careerrat/_people/<name>/. A background search started for one person can only read and write that person's workspace. careerrat --for david tui opens their saved jobs and puts their name in the header.

An explicit CAREERRAT_DOWNLOADS_DIR is shared on purpose, so set a different one per person if you use it.

Whose AI is it

Run careerrat --for david doctor. It shows the AI route for that workspace:

• their own key: an API key saved in their workspace. This is the clean case.
• your key: an ANTHROPIC_API_KEY exported in your shell.
• your subscription: an AI command line tool installed and signed in on your computer.
• none: no key and no tool. AI steps are skipped.

If it isn't their own key, a background search for them prints a warning before it runs. It doesn't stop. Whether your plan or key may be used for someone else's work is between you and the provider's terms, so check that before you rely on it.

Questions only they can answer

CareerRat never answers a question that asks the applicant to vouch for their answers ("I certify this is true") or to say whether AI helped prepare the application. Those always come back as NEEDS YOU, even when a saved answer exists. The person answers them themselves.

Keeping them in the loop

CareerRat can email the person a roundup of what happened, and email them a draft reply to a recruiter to send themselves. You run both by command. Nothing is scheduled.

CareerRat never sends mail to an employer or recruiter. Those stay drafts. The only mail CareerRat sends is to the person whose workspace it is, at the address you record for them, after they said yes.

Record their address and their yes

careerrat --for david people contact set --email david@example.com --timezone America/Chicago
careerrat --for david people contact opt-in email --evidence "said yes on a call, Nov 2"
careerrat --for david people contact show

Quiet hours default to 21:00-08:00 in their timezone; change them with --quiet-hours 22:00-07:00. Without an opt-in, any notification fails with NOTIFY_NO_OPT_IN. If they ask you to stop, run careerrat --for david people contact opt-out email. Replying STOP to a message doesn't reach CareerRat yet, so it's on you to run that when they ask. Removing the person deletes the contact record, the opt-in and the send log with the rest.

The roundup

careerrat --for david roundup                 # print it, send nothing
careerrat --for david roundup --since 2026-10-26
careerrat --for david roundup --send          # email it to their registered address

It lists the applications CareerRat verified in the window, status changes, and any questions still waiting on them as a numbered list. It never includes pay, SSN, date of birth or background-check links; a question that touches those is replaced with a plain "open CareerRat to answer it". The window starts at the last roundup sent, or seven days back. A second --send in the same window does nothing. During their quiet hours --send refuses and tells you when to rerun; --now sends anyway.

Recruiter reply drafts

careerrat --for david comm handoff <communication id> --deliver-to-person
careerrat --for david comm mark-sent <communication id>

The first emails the reviewed draft to David ("Draft reply to <recruiter> for you to send"), never to the recruiter. After he sends it from his own mailbox, mark-sent records it as a supervised send.

One-time mail setup

Sending needs a mail provider and a sending subdomain of its own, so roundups don't share a reputation with anything else. You do this once, for you, not per person.

1. Pick a sending subdomain, for example mail.careerrat.com, and a from address on it, for example updates@mail.careerrat.com.
2. Create an account with a provider. Resend is the simplest: add the subdomain there and it gives you the DNS records. Any SMTP service works too.
3. Publish the DNS records on the subdomain: SPF (authorize the provider), DKIM (the keys the provider gives you) and DMARC (a TXT at _dmarc.mail.careerrat.com, start with p=none). Wait for the provider to show the domain as verified.
4. Set the environment before you run --send:

With none of this set, --send stops and prints this list. The message goes from your provider to the person's mail server, so it passes through that provider.

Removing someone

careerrat people remove david --purge --yes

This deletes their data root (including the browser profile) and their generated documents. A backup of both is written to <data root>/people-backups/ first, so delete that folder too if the goal is to remove everything. Without --yes it refuses and changes nothing. A custom CAREERRAT_DOWNLOADS_DIR is left alone.