What are launchd's LaunchAgents directories for?

Question

I created some job plist files and put them in ~/Library/LaunchAgents. Now I don't see the point of this special directory (see launchd manpage). When I want to load a job, I have to specify a whole path to a plist file. Or can I somehow restart launchd so that it reads those files again?

Answer 1

Depending on the key Disabled the job definitions in ~/Library/LaunchAgents will be loaded automatically by launchd whenever the user logs in.