0001: The agency model

Status: accepted

Context

A team of AI agents needs the same things a team of contractors does. Each needs a job description, a name and accounts, access to the right repositories, a way to receive work, and someone keeping the work moving. Built ad hoc for one product, these end up hard-coded into scripts and prompts that nobody else can reuse.

Decision

Outstaff works like an outsourcing agency:

• Catalog: the agency’s bench of roles and skills, versioned and shipped with the framework.
• Team: one client engagement, described in .outstaff/team.yaml in the client’s repository.
• Person: one agent on the team. It is an instance of a catalog role with a name, pronouns, an avatar and repository grants.
• Human: a real person working with the team (see 0004).
• Office: the team’s hub, which takes in events and schedules work (see 0003).

Consequences

• A client repository holds configuration, not framework code.
• Hiring is a command (ost hire <role>) that adds a person to the team config and walks through their setup.
• Everything product-specific lives in the team config, or in catalog files the client has ejected.