How to Start Using Task Machine After Iteration Layer Shut Down

Updated

Iteration Layer has shut down as a standalone product, and its APIs are no longer available. If you came for Iteration Layer, the replacement is Task Machine — a different product built by the same team. To start, go to the Task Machine site and begin a 7-day trial; pricing details live on the Task Machine pricing page. There is no migration path for Iteration Layer APIs, so any integration you built on them needs to be replaced rather than ported.

What actually changed

This is not a rebrand. The team states plainly that Task Machine is a different product solving a different problem:

Iteration Layer Task Machine
What it was European AI worker infrastructure Agent workflows for recurring work
Status Shut down as a standalone product Active, same team
APIs No longer available Not described as an API product
Entry point — Task Machine site, 7-day trial

The team's own framing: they wound Iteration Layer down because trying to do two things at once meant doing neither well, and the work they kept thinking about was Task Machine.

Who Task Machine is for

It targets work that never really ends — the follow-ups, reports, and small recurring jobs that quietly eat your week. You hand those to AI agents and stay in the loop rather than stepping out of it.

Concretely, the product describes:

  • Controlled workflows — turn a repeated job into steps with owners, schedules, approvals, checks, and retries, so it runs the same way every time.
  • Inbox-first control — approvals, questions, blockers, and finished results gather in one place, so you don't have to watch every run.
  • Your existing subscriptions — run agents on model subscriptions you already pay for, such as ChatGPT or GitHub Copilot.
  • Audit trail — every decision, check, retry, tool call, and cost stays attached to the run.
  • Spending limits — described as a guard against runaway work.

How to get started

  1. Go to the Task Machine site. This is the only entry point described; there is no Iteration Layer product left to log into.
  2. Start the 7-day trial. The trial is offered directly from the site.
  3. Check pricing before you commit. The pricing page is linked from the Task Machine site — read it there rather than assuming trial terms carry over.
  4. Pick one recurring job to hand over first. The team's own suggested starting point is "the work you keep putting off" — a single recurring task is a better first test than a whole workflow library.
  5. Set your approvals and spending limits up front. Both are part of the control model, so configure them before the first scheduled run rather than after.
  6. Review the run history. Each run leaves an audit trail; use it to confirm the agent did what you expected before you widen scope.

Common sticking points

  • Expecting an API. Iteration Layer's APIs are gone and Task Machine is not presented as an API replacement. If your use case was programmatic infrastructure, this is a different shape of product — evaluate it on its own terms.
  • Assuming the trial removes the decision. The trial is 7 days; pricing is a separate page. Check it before you build dependencies on the trial.
  • Turning on too much at once. The control features — approvals, limits, audit history — only help if you actually configure them. Start narrow.
  • Treating it as a rename. The team explicitly says it isn't. Anything you knew about Iteration Layer's behavior doesn't transfer.

If you need the old Iteration Layer, it isn't coming back — the team's stated position is that they went all in on Task Machine instead. The practical next step is the trial, one recurring task, and a look at the pricing page before the 7 days are up.