Work detail

A work detail is a collection of labor permissions.

Work detail tab

The work detail tab is accessed from the y labor menu. Work details are listed on the left side of the screen. By clicking on one of them you will then see a list of all the adult citizens in your fortress on the right. A check mark in the rightmost box shows if the work detail has been assigned to a citizen.

Each work detail has it's own set of three mutually exclusive buttons to the top of the tab. They are "Everybody does this", "Only selected do this", and "Nobody does this".

When "Only select do this" is selected, the work detail can be assigned to as many citizens as you like by checking the rightmost box next to their name. This set up gives those citizens permission to do the work detail's labors.

With "Everybody does this" selected, all citizens in the fortress will have permission to do the work detail's labors. Any check marks/permissions set up before selecting "Everybody does this" will go white, showing that they are paused and they will be restored if you go back to "Only select do this".

When "Nobody does this" is selected, all citizens in the fortress will be banned from doing the work detail's labors. This overrides permissions given by other works details.^[Verify] Any check marks/permissions set up before selecting "Nobody does this" will go red, showing that they are paused and they will be restored if you go back to "Only select do this".

Specialization

Each citizen has the option to be specialized, this is shown by the hammer and lock icon just to the right of their name (It can also be viewed and interacted with from the u Citizens menu). When this icon is toggled to be red, the citizen is specialized, and will ignore any "Everybody does this" work detail.

Labors with no associated work detail

Labors not assigned to any work detail are treated as "Everybody does this".^[Verify]

Default work detail set up

By default the work details, and the labors associated with them, are as follows^[1]

• Miners†
  • Mining
• Woodcutters†
  • Woodcutting
• Hunters†
  • Hunting
• Planters
  • Farming (fields)
• Fisherdwarves
  • Fishing
• Plant gatherers
  • Plant gathering
• Stonecutters
  • Stonecutting
• Engravers
  • Stone engraving
• Haulers
  • All Hauling labors
• Orderlies
  • Suturing
  • Dressing wounds
  • Feed patients/prisoners
  • Recovering wounded

†The Mining, Woodcutting, and Hunting labors are only accessible from these default work details.

Adding work details

Additional work details can be added from the work detail tab (y). Click "Add new work detail", select which labors will be associated with it, and then click done. You can then rename the new work detail. As of December 2022^v50.04, there is currently no way to choose the work detail's icon, so you are stuck with what the game chooses. The roman numerals are in the file Dwarf Fortress\data\vanilla\vanilla_interface\graphics\images\interface_bits_labor.png and can be changed, but will still be used in order.

Editing work details

With the custom work detail selected, at the top of tab click the gear icon. This will bring up the labor selection screen, and you can toggle on/off labors just like when you were first creating the work detail.