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Build: agents

Agents

Software that reads, decides and acts, with receipts. Not a chatbot: files you can open, tools it is allowed to touch, memory it keeps, rules that stop it.

Trigger

an email, a form, a question, a schedule

Agent

reads, decides, acts, repeats

Output

a record updated, a draft, an answer with its source

  1. 01

    Instructions

    always loaded
    • CLAUDE.md
    • AGENTS.md
    • skills/*/SKILL.md
  2. 02

    Tools

    loads when used
    • .mcp.json
    • scripts/
    • Gmail
    • Google Drive
    • HubSpot
    • Slack
    • QuickBooks
    • Google Calendar
  3. 03

    Memory

    loads on demand
    • memory/memory.md
    • the context window
  4. 04

    Guardrails

    always loaded
    • permission modes
    • hooks/
    • a human says yes

Only the instructions are in the room at rest. Tools and memory arrive when a task calls for them; guardrails sit under everything.

  1. It starts when something happens

    An email lands, a form is filled, a document arrives, a schedule fires, or someone asks a question. Nobody has to remember to run it.

  2. Its instructions are files you can read

    Plain text, in your own folder, saying what it does and what it must never do. Change the file and you have changed the agent.

  3. It only touches the tools you connect

    Your inbox, your files, your CRM, your calendar. Each one is listed by name, and each one can be read-only if you want it that way.

  4. It remembers in plain files too

    What it learned, what it decided, what it was told. Readable by a person without the system, and yours to keep if you ever switch it off.

  5. Rules that stop it, running as code

    A person says yes before anything that cannot be undone. Every run leaves a receipt of what it read, what it did and what it left alone.

The difference

An agent is not an automation.

The same job, run twice. Watch where the line stops and what the loop does instead.

The invoice chase, as a workflowAs an automation

An invoice goes past due. The workflow does what it always does.

All of this is true, and outside the workflow. It cannot see any of it.

Her replyWe paid this last week, from the other account.
Payments receivedEvery payment, and the name it came in under.
The customer's recordsNorthside Dental, and Northside Dental Holdings.

The workflow

  1. 01The invoice goes past dueQuickBooks marks it. The workflow starts.
  2. 02Send the reminderIn your voice, with the payment link.
  3. 03Wait the set number of daysThe same wait, every time.
  4. 04Send the next reminderAnd the one after that, on the same schedule.

The end of the workflow

What she asked last timeThe same question, last month, about a different invoice.
Your own termsStop chasing the moment a payment is disputed.
The job it was forThe drain, at the practice, signed off.

    An automation is a line. Trigger, steps, output, the same every time, inside a boundary it cannot leave. When the input is what the steps expect it is perfect, and when it is not, it carries on anyway.

    You want both. Automations for the work that never varies, agents for the work where the situation moves. Most of what we build is an automation with an agent in one seat.

    The ring is not a limit. It is the instruction

    An agent is not loose. Its instructions are files you can read, it touches only the tools you connect, and anything it cannot undo waits for a person. It runs at any hour, in whatever capacity the job needs, inside the ring you drew.

    The longer version, with the test for which one you need, is on the blog: agent or automation?

    The roster

    The agents we build.

    Grouped the way a business is. Pick one and watch it work: what it reads before it decides, what it does, and the thing it will not do without you.

    AgentsReporting to you
    YouEvery one of them reports here. Anything that cannot be undone waits for your yes.

    Sales and pipeline

    Service delivery

    Money

    Operations

    Knowledge

    The lead responder

    Answers every new lead while they are still on the page, and books the visit.

    RunsWatching, every minute of every day.

    The lead responder

    1. The form
    2. The CRM
    3. Past threads
    4. The diary
    5. Your rules
    Text, from your own numberDone

    Hi Dana, Sam here. We looked after Miller Homes before.

    Thursday morning is open, with the same crew.

    What came back

      You stop losing the ones who filled in a form on a Sunday night.

      These are the roles we build. Yours would read your files, touch only the tools you connect, run on its own schedule, and leave a receipt of every run.

      Built for clients

      The same anatomy, in someone else's stack.

      Where in your day would one of these sit?

      Talk about an agent for your workThe agent packs in the Systems Library

      What one costs to build is on the three prices.