Robot Service

The robot service is the brain of all operations. It communicates through an inter-process communication channel with Studio , the UiPath Assistant , and Robot Command Line Interface to receive and process information, and then to provide the necessary instructions to the Robot Executor .

The robot service is also responsible for sending the Robot heartbeat to Orchestrator, communicating execution status or receiving new execution orders, and acting as a proxy between Orchestrator and the execution hosts.

Windows sessions in which processes are executed are managed and monitored by the Robot service, while also being trusted with the credentials for Robots.

The robot service can be deployed in service mode or user mode. The main differences are presented in the table below:

Action	Service Mode Robot	User Mode Robot
Attended Execution
Unattended Execution (Automatic Session Management)		1
Concurrent Job Execution
Single Machine - Multi-User Deployment

1 Unattended execution with the User Mode Robot is possible only while the user is logged in with an active session.

The Service Mode Robot service

The Service Mode Robot is best suited to unattended automation scenarios. When a process is executed, the Robot Executor runs with the same rights as the user under which it is registered.

The Service Mode Robot service:

• Uses UiPath.Service.Host.exe and an additional per-user service (UiPath.Service.UserHost.exe) for each user on the machine.
• Is launched by the Service Control Manager (SCM) under the Local System user.
• Can open interactive Windows sessions.
• Is best suited for unattended automation scenarios and large-scale platform deployments.
• Has the rights of a machine administrator.
• Is listed under Windows services.
• Can execute jobs from Orchestrator even if a user is not logged in by starting a session.

Additionally:

• The UiPath.settings file is installed in the %ProgramData%\UiPath folder.
• Packages are downloaded in the %userprofile%\.nuget\packages folder by default.
• Local packages are saved in the %ProgramData%\UiPath\Packages folder, and are available in the Assistant.
  
  

  

  
  

  A Service Mode Robot can be easily updated or converted to a User Mode Robot.

  Note: When converting the Robot from Service-Mode to User-Mode, the Robot might not be able to access the .xaml files from the original NuGet Packages folder. For details on how to resolve this, please read this guide which offers more details on this specific scenario.

The User Mode Robot service

The user-mode robot is best suited to attended automation scenarios. It runs under the user that starts it, and has the exact same rights as that particular user.

The User Mode Robot service:

• Only uses UiPath.Service.UserHost.exe and is launched automatically by Studio or UiPath Assistant.
• Is best suited for attended automation scenarios.
• Has the rights of the user that runs it.
• Is not listed under Windows services.
• Requires a user to be logged in with an active session to execute jobs from Orchestrator.

Additionally:

• The UiPath.settings file is installed in the %LocalAppData%\UiPath folder.
• Packages are downloaded in the %userprofile%\.nuget\packages folder.
• Local packages are saved in the %ProgramData%\UiPath\Packages folder and are available in the Assistant.
  
  

  

  
  

  A User Mode Robot can easily be updated or converted to a Service Mode Robot .