Hire your Chief of Staff and choose its style
How do I make this agent work for my work, and sound the way I want?
Everything you've watched so far ran on the supplied Chief of Staff, with our job in it. It doesn't know your priorities, your recurring job, or how you like to be spoken to. Today you make it yours.
You answer six questions. Your answers go into your own records, which the Chief of Staff reads before every job; nothing is saved until you say yes. Then you ask it to plan once more for the request you left open in Lesson 6 and ask it one thing: what's waiting on me?
After that you give it a voice. You pick a style, hear the same brief twice, and check that only the sound changed. Then you read it the way you'd read a new hire's first email, say what's off, and ask again.
You're approving a job as well as choosing a name. And it's a first version: you'll keep shaping it every week from here.
Your own Chief of Staff, working from your priorities, in a voice you chose, and its first brief.
Until it knows your priorities it can route work, but it can't tell you what deserves your attention.
You answer six questions with your Chief of Staff. It proposes the records; you approve the exact text and location before it saves and reads them back. You choose its name and how it sounds.
You approve every change, line by line. Nothing is saved until you say yes.
Your Sept 20 wording
Everything you've watched so far ran on our Chief of Staff, with our job in it. It doesn't know your work, your priorities, or how you like to be spoken to. Today you hire your own. You answer six questions. Your guide drafts the file. You read it, and nothing is saved until you say yes. Then you run it once and ask it one thing: what's waiting on me? After that you give it a voice...
Hunter's opening
The supplied Chief has a role. Now make that role useful for your work and choose how you want it to communicate. A memorable voice is welcome; missing facts and open decisions must remain just as clear.
Before you start
Everything this lesson needs is already in your workbench: your corrected brief, your approved sources, and the plan you left open in Lesson 6. Your Chief of Staff reads the first two before every job and finds the third in the job's records. The one new thing you supply today is your three priorities. Pick one of the three jobs from your before photo to work with. The Professor helps you learn and review; your Chief of Staff coordinates the organization's work.
Hunter's wording
Bring your reviewed plan from Lesson 6, corrected founder brief, approved sources, and three priorities. Use a recurring case from your before photo. The Professor helps you learn and review; Chief coordinates the organization's work.
Start or resume this lesson
You'll work with both agents today, in two threads: The Professor for learning and course-progress notes; your Chief of Staff for the six decisions, operational records, briefs and the Voice Analyst. Call each in the way you did in Lesson 6. Then paste this to The Professor:
Use the native aibl-the-professor agent to guide my hire and style lesson. Read course/workforce/prompts/anw-l32.txt and course/workforce/lessons/anw-l32.md completely. Resume from my actual saved step. I will call Chief of Staff myself for its work. Show proposed record changes and wait for my yes; report missing files or unsupported routes.
Same two things as Lesson 6: it reads course/workforce/module3-plan.md and lessons/anw-l32.md, neither in the student repo; and it has The Professor "have the Chief of Staff" do things, where your ruling has the student call the Chief of Staff in themselves. The prompts on this page follow the ruling.
Here, hire means approving and applying your personal working instructions to the supplied Chief, then seeing that Chief use them. It doesn't mean creating another agent with the same job. You may choose a name, but the name alone isn't the hire.
Part 1: give the role a job that is yours
You read Chief's file in Lesson 6. Keep that role: coordinating work, reading saved results, and bringing decisions to you. Personalization should make its purpose more useful, not quietly turn it into the Writer, the Reviewer, or an agent allowed to send on your behalf.
Six decisions to make
Priorities
Three lines about what matters most this month.
Recurring job
One of the three cases in your before photo.
Permitted inputs
Which approved sources that job needs, and what stays out.
Useful return
The result you want to inspect, such as a decision packet with sources and a recommendation.
Communication
What helps you act: short or detailed, bullets or prose, with missing information always visible.
Stopping rule
What must come back to you, including any additional boundary specific to your work.
These are six decisions, not six guaranteed blank slots in the native file. Your brief, priorities, communication profile, and any reviewed role correction have different homes. Chief's current instructions already read the first three. A native role change needs the authorized setup process; saving an extra profile in a course folder doesn't make it active.
Try it: approve and verify the personalization
A brief is four headings. Start with the first.
After it has prepared its plan, ask it one question: "What's waiting on me?" What comes back always has the same four headings.
The decisions waiting on you. Read this first.
What decision is waiting, and what would your answer unlock?
What got done.
The work behind the decision. If something is claimed and there's no saved work record, ask your guide to check before you treat it as done.
What's still open.
What it couldn't settle, and why.
How to read the picture. One brief, four headings, top to bottom. Only the top one needs you. This is a made-up example. It is not a captured run, and nothing in Week 1 sends you a brief on a schedule.
The brief.One made-up brief with four headings. Only the top one needs you.
1. Keep the starting version
Ask Chief for the current brief, including the plan left open in Lesson 6. Preserve that brief and the relevant current instructions before changing them. Confirm what is already known from your saved records.
Say this to your Chief of Staff:
Read course/workforce/lessons/anw-l32.md for the Chief of Staff activities and seven style checks. Keep course-progress saves with The Professor; you maintain the operational records you read. What's waiting on me? Show me the brief with its four headings, including the plan I left open in Lesson 6. Show me the exact record location and brief; wait for my yes before saving it as the version before I change anything. Read back the saved version and keep the original Lesson 6 work order.
2. Answer the six questions
Give only what's new or needs correction. The Professor can help sharpen a vague answer. Keep priorities in their own record so changing this month's focus doesn't require rewriting the role. Ask what Chief would stop doing if this recurring job disappeared; a role needs an ongoing purpose.
Say this to your Chief of Staff:
I'm hiring my own Chief of Staff. Ask me the six questions one at a time, and wait for my answer to each: my three priorities this month, its recurring job, what it may read, what it returns, how it talks to me, and when it stops. Reuse anything already in my brief. Show me the exact text and destination before saving anything, wait for my explicit yes, then read it back. Save my three priorities in work/course/staff/priorities.md. Put what you return and my extra stopping rule in founder-brief.md under where you decide. You maintain those operational records; keep earlier answers and approved versions. If the installed write scope is missing, hold the save rather than asking The Professor to perform it.
3. Read what would change
Inspect exactly which text would change and where. Your Chief of Staff saves only the records you approve and reads them back. If a native agent file or its registration needs changing, Chief of Staff routes the proposal through the Technical Operator, which shows the exact change before anything is applied. Chief does not rewrite its own agent definition.
Say this to your Chief of Staff:
Here are my six answers, and the name I choose for you is [name]. Show me the exact operational-record changes. Ask the Technical Operator for the naming diff across both app files, your profile and the team directory, keeping aibl-chief-of-staff unchanged. Show the actual paths and changes; don't invent a path or change anything before my yes.
4. Approve, then run the planning step once
Approve the specific changes you want. Open the saved records, and where a native change was required, verify that the selected app is using it. Ask Chief to revisit the same bounded case and return its work order and brief. Check that your priorities, input boundary, and stopping rule affect the plan. Keep specialist execution paused unless you separately choose to authorize it. An unused proposal remains a proposal.
Say this to your Chief of Staff:
I approve these changes: [which]. Save only the approved records within your scope and read them back. You own priorities, founder brief, approved sources, voice samples and communication profile. If your installed scope cannot save one, report the missing update and hold it; do not delegate that save to The Professor. Have the Technical Operator apply only my approved naming diff and run its drift check, returning the actual result. Then plan the same request from Lesson 6 again and show me the work order and the brief. Tell me where my priorities, my input boundary and my stopping rule changed the plan. Don't execute the open Lesson 6 job.
After an agent installation, removal, or setup change, Gigawatt runs a drift check: it compares the current setup with the charter's agreed rules. Ask to see the saved report. If it finds a difference, you decide whether to change the setup or approve a charter amendment; finding a difference does not authorize a repair. If you haven't adopted the charter yet, the check should say it was not run. Lesson 7 handles adoption and the follow-up check.
Don't create a standing order or unattended schedule as part of the hire. A recurring job is a repeated need; scheduling it is a separate decision after evidence of reliable work.
Read the diagram as an approval sequence, not a claim that creating a file makes an agent work.
existing Chief and records → six owner decisions → exact proposed changes → approval → active read-back and returned work. Distinguish personal records from an optional native setup change.
The Steward's file: "The drift check. Run drift-check.py. Compare what the charter's authority table grants against what the registry, the settings files and the agent files for both apps declare." Gigawatt's own file says "the Steward's drift check keeps this file honest." So this paragraph names the wrong agent. Candidate: "the Charter Steward runs a drift check." Your Q29 ruling still applies: the student asks the Chief of Staff for the Steward's check.
Visual 15, "The hire," draws a blueprint with six blank slots in the Chief of Staff's file, your guide filling them, and tools Read, Glob, Grep. Tyler's file has no slots, the tools line is longer, and the hire is personal records plus an optional native change through Gigawatt. So Visual 15 is not shown. His placeholder (records, six decisions, proposed changes, approval, read-back) needs a new drawing. Visuals 16 and 18 still fit and are shown.
Part 2: choose a voice you want to hear
This is part of the lesson, not an optional appendix. Pick a communication style with recognizable qualities: a direct coach, a warm host, a measured narrator, or dry humor with short sentences. It can reflect your own writing or a permitted style you enjoy. You're choosing a way of communicating, not pretending Chief is another person.
The Professor's teaching preference from Lesson 4 is separate. This profile is for Chief's work updates. Week 2's customer-facing Writer voice is another use again.
Echo, your Voice Analyst, analyzes samples. It doesn't write the finished brief. Its proposed voice package describes useful patterns and cites the samples behind them. Its empathy brief describes how to make collaboration easier, such as clearer pacing and visible decisions. That is communication guidance, not a diagnosis or a claim about hidden personality traits.
Two files, two jobs: how you want it to sound, and how that gets worked out.
The communication profile. How it opens, how long it runs, what it never says, how it delivers bad news. It describes a way of talking, not a person. Your Chief of Staff reads it before every brief from now on.
The Voice Analyst's procedure. Your Voice Analyst (Echo) reads style samples and proposes that profile. Same difference between context and a method you met in Module 1.
Use permitted samples and label their source and situation: explaining, answering a question, being casual, delivering bad news, recognizing progress and being brief. About 3,000 words is a collection guide, not proof of a complete profile. If a situation is missing, name the gap. You're designing a style, not claiming someone's identity or endorsement.
Give Echo enough variety
The samples cover six situations, because one kind of writing cannot show every part of a voice:
| Situation | What it lets you compare |
|---|---|
| Explaining at length | Structure and development of an idea. |
| Answering a question | How the response gets to the point. |
| Being casual | Informality, rhythm, and ordinary language. |
| Delivering bad news or disagreeing | Directness, care, and handling of tension. |
| Being pleased | Energy without inventing praise or results. |
| Being brief | What remains when space is limited. |
Use permitted samples and label their source and situation. About 3,000 words is a collection guide, not proof of a complete profile. Echo checks coverage and reports thin or uneven evidence. If a situation is missing, name the gap; don't have Echo manufacture samples to fill it.
One style is enough. If you want a blend, keep each source voice distinct during analysis and choose which supported qualities to combine afterward. A blend still needs adjustment afterwards. A blend isn't automatically better because it has more sources.
Try it: analyze, choose, compare
1. Choose a style and approve the samples
Use your own permitted writing or other material you are allowed to process. Do not assume fictional starter samples are installed. Keep the six situations visible and identify gaps. Chief of Staff can record a request for the Technical Operator to gather a named public source, using only the scope you approve. That fetch route is held until its fixes are delivered and verified; do not run it from this lesson yet. Pasting a link is not blanket permission to search accounts or gather everything about a person.
Say this to your Chief of Staff:
I want my Chief of Staff to sound like [a calm dispatcher / a warm host / your choice]. Use my described preferences, approved transcript or writing I'm allowed to use; distinguish a description from sample evidence, label each one with its source and situation, and tell me which situations are thin. Show me the exact proposed work/course/staff/voice-samples.md before saving, wait for my explicit yes, then read it back. Keep the original quotes and sources intact; do not invent missing samples.
2. Have Echo analyze them
Read the bounded work order and approve the run. Echo should return a voice package and empathy brief, with the source list and limits. Its method considers twelve dimensions, from sentence structure and vocabulary to audience adaptation and what the samples leave unsaid. You don't need to memorize the dimensions; check that recommendations have supporting quotes and that unsupported interpretations are labeled.
Say this to your Chief of Staff:
For one voice from my own approved material, commission the Voice Analyst directly. For a blend or background request, show the bridge plan; do not fetch a public source until the required fixes are installed and verified. If I supplied only a description, propose preferences and label them as mine, not as an analyst finding. Show me the work order before any run and wait for my go. If an analyst actually returns, show its proposed rules with the quotes behind each one and mark inferences. For a description-only route, label the proposal as my stated preference and do not invent quotes or an analyst return.
3. Make one rule yours
Read the recommendations. Choose at least one to rewrite in your own words, clarify, or reject. For example, change “be punchy” to “put the decision first, then give the two facts I need.” Mark your choice as yours, distinct from Echo's finding. For a blend, select specific rules from the separate packages and resolve any contradiction.
Say this to The Professor:
Here is the one rule I'm rewriting in my own words: [your rule]. Keep the Voice Analyst's actual version and mine apart so I can see which is which. If there was no analyst run, use the proposed preference instead and say so. Save only an approved learning comparison; Chief of Staff handles the operational profile.
4. Approve the communication profile
Review the short set of rules Chief will use, with your edits and source packages identified. Chief of Staff alone saves this approved profile in work/course/staff/communication-profile.md, after your exact approval. The Professor can record your learning comparison, not change this operational profile. Chief of Staff's current instructions specify reading that file before a brief; verify the actual read. Preserve the earlier version if one exists; don't paste an entire sample collection into the agent's definition.
Say this to your Chief of Staff:
Show me the short set of rules you'll use for my briefs, with my edit marked as mine and the actual source package or described preference named. If I say yes, save it as my communication profile and read it back. Keep the earlier version if there is one.
Same brief, different sound. The meaning must not move.
You'll ask "What's waiting on me?" twice: once plain, once in your chosen style. Same case, same facts, same work records. Read them side by side.
Needs you: confirm the room. Ran: the Quality Reviewer reviewed the draft and suggested one revision. Outstanding: the Communications Writer has not applied that revision. Blocked or unclear: room capacity is unconfirmed.
Needs you: one decision, which room should we use? Ran: the Quality Reviewer has reviewed the draft and suggested one revision. Outstanding: the Communications Writer still needs to apply it. Blocked or unclear: we still need a confirmed room capacity.
Both keep the four headings, the same agents, the same suggestion, one outstanding revision and one unknown. A made-up example, not an actual return.
"The Quality Reviewer fixed it, so say yes."
It turns a suggestion into a finished fix, and it pushes you to approve. A punchier voice must never pressure you into a yes.
Seven things that must survive any style.
How to read the picture. The same made-up brief three times: plain, a measured narrator, a brisk chef. Look for what stays the same in all three, not what changes.
Vanilla, and yours.The same made-up brief in three styles. Look for what stays the same in all three.
5. Hear the same brief twice
Use the same saved job state and inputs as far as possible. Compare the two briefs side by side. The four headings, facts, missing information, evidence, and decisions should stay intact. The wording and rhythm should reflect your chosen rules. If work changed between runs, label that difference rather than attributing it to style.
Say this to your Chief of Staff:
What's waiting on me? Same case, same facts, same work records as before. Change only the style. Put the two briefs side by side and check the seven things that must not change.
6. Read it, react, ask again
Read the new brief like you'd read a new hire's first email. Does it sound like the person you picked? Find one thing that's off: too long, too jokey, buries the ask. Say so in plain words. It changes that rule with your yes, and you ask for the brief again. Go round two or three times. Stop when you'd be happy to read it at eight in the morning. The facts never change between rounds. Only the voice does.
Say this to your Chief of Staff:
Here's what's off in the new brief: [too long / too jokey / buries the ask]. Propose that rule change in my words and show me the exact text and profile location first. Only if I say yes, save it, read it back, and answer "What's waiting on me?" again with the same facts and work records. Keep the earlier profile and brief; change only the style.
Chief writes its own brief using the approved profile. If you ask for a separate piece of audience-facing copy, that belongs to YGM. Echo should not turn its analysis into imitation copy, and Chief should not pretend that its own summary is Echo's exact returned analysis.
two briefs with Needs you / Ran / Outstanding / Blocked or unclear aligned; highlight changed wording and unchanged facts, uncertainty, and approval boundaries. Show the approved style rule that explains one change.
"Sara's sample design," "Sara's earlier target of roughly 3,000 words," "Tyler's current Echo checks coverage," "Tyler's demo used several styles." Same edit as the other pages, applied in green: the facts stand without the names. Checked: Echo's file does read the six situations and does report a thin or uneven corpus; the 3,000-word figure is yours and appears nowhere in Tyler's files.
Both your Sept 20 page ("the prepared made-up samples") and his draft ("supplied fictional samples") assume a starter set of six-situation samples. The student repo has none: no samples file, no prepared styles. Echo reads work/course/staff/voice-samples.md, which the student writes. Either the package ships a starter set (your nature-documentary narrator from Visual 18 is one) or the lesson tells students to bring their own. Also still in the student package: the retired skill aibl-design-communication-style, which Gigawatt's notes say moves to YGM.
Bare "Chief" 29 times; "Echo, your Voice Analyst" and "YGM" in their long forms. And one word: Echo's file calls its output a "voice package" (with an "empathy brief"); the lesson and the file name say "communication profile." Hunter uses both. Your ruling from Sept 21 (in memory): keep "communication profile" for the student. Candidate: say once that Echo calls its proposal a voice package, then use communication profile throughout.
| What you notice | What to do |
|---|---|
| The new brief sounds the same | Check that the approved profile was read. Then name a specific rule and the sentence that should reflect it. |
| It sounds lively but hides the missing fact | Reject that change. Style must preserve uncertainty and decisions. |
| Echo's rule has no supporting quote | Treat it as an inference or unsupported claim, not an established pattern. |
| Your samples mix several people without labels | Separate them or reduce the selection before analysis. |
| The personalized file exists but the app uses the old one | Mark the new version as not yet in use and have Chief request Gigawatt's setup check. |
| An update conflicts with your personal correction | Review the proposed change and choose what to keep. Don't let an update silently replace it. |
You can revise a preference later. Preserve the approved version and its purpose so you can understand what changed. The update process must show conflicts with your changes; this lesson doesn't authorize an update or promise one already handled them.
Your Sept 20 stuck box
| What you notice | First move |
|---|---|
| The Chief of Staff wrote the draft itself | Ask which specialist should have had that job. Keep the mistaken return, and have your guide follow the correct route. |
| It routed to the wrong agent | Open the chosen agent's one-line job description and the map. Is the description vague, or is a responsibility missing? Propose the correction before changing it. |
| The work order just repeats your request | Ask for the five parts: which agent, what, with what, limits, back to whom. |
| The brief has no "Needs you" | Ask which work records it read. The heading should say what needs you, or show that nothing is waiting. |
| It asks you something the rules already answer | Find that rule and note the mismatch. Module 4 is where you read and agree those rules. |
A possible misunderstanding: A saved profile is already hired, or a more confident style may turn a suggestion into completed work.
First hint: Find the selected version and actual return. Then compare what happened, not just how it sounds.
Another example: A theatre stage manager may say “One cue needs your call” instead of “Approval required.” Neither version can claim the lighting change happened before the technician confirms it.
A smaller step: Compare one line from the two actual briefs. Keep its actor, action and uncertainty fixed, change one style rule and retry only the unfinished comparison.
What you'll keep
Keep the six owner decisions, three priorities, original and approved instructions, and proof of which version was used. Keep the approved sample record, Echo's returned packages, your edit, the communication profile, and both briefs. Job returns stay under runs/; personal course records stay under work/course/staff/. Ask for the files by their purpose and read them back.
Before you finish
Chief has used your approved working information in a returned plan or brief. You can identify one decision you made about the role, one style rule you changed, and one sentence that demonstrates it. Both briefs retain the same four headings and make missing facts and human decisions clear. If the run or activation is missing, that part remains unfinished.
Next: Module 4, Set the rules and see what changed. Review the charter against the work you've now seen, then compare with the original starting picture.