Skip to content
The AI Agent Factory

The case at a glance

Approved by
Panaversity ·
6 min read

Read this page after the story. It is a summary, so it gives the ending away.

The case in ten sentences

  1. Nisha's firm grows to three people, so her personal AI Worker has to become a team worker.
  2. The worker moves into the firm's Slack channel through Claude Tag, and gets its own name and its own mailbox.
  3. In a channel, the worker's shared access is the same for everyone who is there.
  4. The firm writes one rule: send the client's file only after Nisha or Sana has approved it.
  5. On Wednesday Nisha approves a draft. On Friday she is on a flight, and a different file is ready. Its first line shows the figure her own instructions asked for, and that figure is $4,800 too high.
  6. Hamza tells the worker that Nisha approved it. The worker refuses twice, because Wednesday's approval was for a different file.
  7. The file is late, and the client misses her bank's deadline. No setting had stopped the file. Only the worker's judgment had.
  8. Sana writes her method down as an agent skill. It fixes how the file is made. It does not decide who may send it.
  9. Nisha has three ways to release files from now on: a better rule, a release channel, or a small approval system.
  10. Rules and skills are instructions the worker reads. A setting or a record closes one path that the worker cannot get past by being asked.

Four ways to shape a worker

Four ways to shape a worker. Four columns. A rule, in the channel instructions: it tells the worker what should happen. Any member can change it. It cannot stop a send. A skill, a folder with a SKILL.md file: it teaches the worker how to do the job well. The Owner adds it for the firm. It cannot stop a send. A setting, where a credential applies: it decides what the worker can reach. An Owner or admin can change it. It can stop a send on the path it controls. A record, an approval tied to one file: it shows who approved what, and a system checks it. The approval system changes it. It can stop a send on the path it controls. Two bands say that rules and skills are instructions the worker reads, and that settings and records are limits the worker cannot get past. A callout says a skill is a method, not a lock. A note says none of the four stops every wrong send, and that a person can still send from an account of their own.

Three questions to ask about any shared worker

QuestionIn this case
Whose name is on what it does?The worker's own account, reports@. That part worked.
Whose word does it take?On Friday, only an approver's. But that was its own judgment, and no setting made it so.
What record shows who approved?None. The thread shows who asked.

Words to remember

WordIn one line
ChannelA room in Slack for one topic. The worker's shared access belongs to the room.
CredentialA key or sign-in that lets the worker use a tool
RoutineWork the worker does on a schedule in a channel
Timing itemA difference between the bank and the ledger that fixes itself
Open itemA difference that nobody has explained yet
Agent skillA folder of instructions for one kind of task, with a SKILL.md file
ApprovalA named person's yes to one exact file
Release channelA private channel that holds the mailbox, with only the approvers in it

Next, the questions for discussion.

Owner
Panaversity

On this page