> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developers.telnyx.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Lifecycle

An instance is activated on demand, kept in memory while it is busy, evicted when idle, and can be restarted or relocated at any time. Nothing of that is managed by the user, and nothing of it loses data.

| Moment | What happens |
| - | - |
| First touch | The first call to a name brings the instance up, wherever the platform has room, and routes the call to it. |
| Busy | The instance stays in memory between calls that follow each other closely. |
| Idle | The instance may be removed from memory to free resources; its storage stays. |
| Next call | The instance is activated again, from storage, on the same or another host. |
| Deploy or host failure | The instance is torn down and re-created from storage. |

## What Survives

Only what was written: the message log, the state, the scheduled tasks and the SQL database. Instance fields such as `this.cache` are a cache that vanishes on eviction, restart or relocation, so a class loads from storage on activation and never assumes the cache is still there.

## What Does Not Expire

A conversation has no idle timeout and no maximum lifetime. Its instance comes and goes; the conversation stays until the agent is deleted. A scheduled task set for next week fires next week, on whatever instance is activated for it.

> [!WARNING]
>
> **Beta.** One conversation cannot be ended on its own. See [Beta Limitations](/docs/agents/deploy-and-operate#beta-limitations).