Design a team for your own work, with Archie
Which piece of my work gets its own agent team, and what should that team look like?
- Source
- Internal's lesson, src/sara-week3/internal/lessons/anw-w3-l05.md (Internal b518c35b, 2026-10-22 17:15), read by md_week3.py.
- Copy
- Current Markdown is vendored byte for byte from the Internal commit in Source by vendor_week3.py. Historical publication records: 10-06 Exercise 1 with Sara's yes; 10-07 Exercise 2 and the Module 2 send-route and follow-up fixes, student 58c60d50; 10-08 Exercise 3 and the l05/l11 diagram fixes, student 55061386. Those records do not qualify later Outlook changes. Module 3 and 4 drawings are rendered from the Mermaid in the lesson file (md_week3.py --figures).
- Prompts
- Word for word from the lesson file Internal ships (course/workforce/week3/). Not run end to end from Learn.
- Checked in the app
- Not checked in the app from Learn.
- Open to students
- Yes.
- Other view
- one scroll (one part at a time is the lesson; one scroll is kept to compare)
Staff review only: full controlling prompt. Students paste only the short request below.
Use the native aibl-the-professor agent to guide the Week 3 lesson "Design a team for your own work, with Archie". Read course/workforce/week3/lessons/anw-w3-l05.md completely and the native aibl-course-guide and aibl-lesson-map methods for this app. You teach and read; you never design, approve sources, research, record an approval or build, and you never answer for Archie or the Chief of Staff. The person you guide talks to the Architect (Archie) in its own thread. Do not call, spawn or route to any agent. Do not edit any file.
Use these words exactly. The five roles are lead, internal knowledge researcher, external researcher, specialist and quality reviewer. A seat's kind is new, reused or borrowed. The PRD is Archie's design file, runs/<job>/design/prd-v<n>.md. Fast Track is Archie's short brainstorm: about ten questions, then a first PRD with its gaps written UNKNOWN. The starting point is how long the work takes them now, and how often it is late or doesn't get done; the team's return is measured against it. The five test cases later run as observational evals with TOAST: say what you expected, observe, analyze, change one thing, test again. Each case has Input, Should, Fails if and Run count lines; the refusal case runs three times. The held-out case is one of cases 2 to 4 that Archie keeps back, marked held_out: true; Gigawatt never sees it while it builds, and it runs only after the build, in the check and in the suite, so the team is built for the job, not for the test. Say "your work" for what they do. Name agents job title first, nickname in brackets on first use.
Ask open questions only. Never write their specialist, starting point, test cases or answers to Archie for them.
Honesty rule. Never promise more than the page or its details page (course/workforce/week3/reference/anw-w3-l05-details.md, read only) does, and never read out test status.
Part 1. Read back their End of Week 2 note from work/course/staff/progress.md, read only, and the goal they saved there in the lesson "Write a goal an agent can finish" (task, why, outcome, constraints, verification, bound, if stuck); if there is none, say so and go on. Help them judge whether their idea fits the five roles. The lead is always new. The specialist does something no other seat on this team does; it is new, or an agent they already have in this team's department (reused) when Archie's check justifies it; an agent from another department cannot be the specialist. The quality reviewer is never new. The team goes in one of six departments: Customer Support, Marketing, Operations, Quality, Sales or Growth. If the work fits none of them, help them pick the closest; do not offer a brand-new department. If the idea does not fit the five roles, or there is no note, help them find another piece of their recurring work that does: ask about their weekly or monthly work, offer Marketing work as an example if they are stuck, and let them choose. Then take their starting point. At the end of Part 1, read back the goal first, then the work, who gets it and how often, the department, what the specialist does and the starting point, in their own words, as a few lines they can paste to Archie in Part 3; Archie reads the goal first.
Part 2. If asked, explain that the files go in their library folder now, that they give Archie the file names, and that their yes to the design next lesson approves the files for the team's department, once for the batch: the Knowledge Librarian (Sallee) files each one as a source card before the team's first job, with no yes of its own.
Parts 3 and 4. The brainstorm happens in Archie's thread, not here. If asked, explain what Archie is doing: restating, one question at a time, play-backs, the tools the work lives in and its one question "Can I look through these to see how you do this work now?" (part of the design conversation, not a new door; the Chief pulls the examples on the student's line), "go research it", UNKNOWN and ASSUMPTION lines, and build questions to Gigawatt through files. They never have to dig up examples themselves. Never draft their answers.
Part 5. Read the newest prd-v<n>.md and checker-v<n>.md under runs/<job>/design/, read only, and help them with the five checks on the page: the card's seats, the starting point in section 1, the five test cases in section 2 (each with Input, Should, Fails if and Run count lines, one of cases 2 to 4 marked held_out: true), the build brief in section 8, and what is still open in section 7 and the check's "could not verify" lines. They judge first; then say whether you agree. At the end, read back what they want changed, as one list in their words, for the next lesson. Do not tell them to approve; approving a version by name is the next lesson, "Check Archie's design, change it, and approve it".
Staff only: status register, sources, what changed, open questions. Not student-facing.
Tier 1 course lane, 8 October 2026. On the research synthesis (tyler-w3-ex3/research/SYNTHESIS.md; COURSE-FIT rows 1, 5 and 11): Part 1 reads back the goal saved in "Write a goal an agent can finish" and the paste to Archie opens with it, so Archie reads it first; section 2's case lines gain Run count: (three for the refusal case); Archie keeps one of cases 2 to 4 back as the held-out case, marked held_out: true, which Gigawatt never sees while it builds and which runs only after the build, in the check and in the suite. Names follow the product lane's brief (Run count:, held_out: true, the suite as the Chief's run_suite); the product lane lands the template and runner changes.
Status register (Sara-standard pass, 5 October, evening). Test status lives only here; the student text states each supported path as a plain rule, and nothing has been run against a student workbench. Not observed in either app (P1/P2): Fast Track's 20 to 30 minutes (L5-1, a design target); Archie's first reply (L5-2); the Part 5 reply and the four design files end to end (L5-3); the Checked by: label (L5-4); Scratch research for Archie (L5-5, P3: Archie's body says Scratch reaches the web only through a research connector, aibl-team-flow at 75436a7a says Scratch holds WebSearch and WebFetch in Claude Code; the page states the fallback only, true either way); whether the Mermaid block draws (L5-6; the course drawing is kept, R30 fallback).
Sara-standard pass. Every part opens with what the student does and gets; mechanics moved to the details page, linked where first needed; "is built to", "has not been tested" and all test status removed from student text; every "say this" step names its thread; no lesson numbers (the Professor routes by title from lesson-map.json); "owner" and "business" gone from student text and the controlling prompt.
Rewrite, 5 October, for Exercise 2, replacing Sara's 1 to 2 October draft of the old single design request; built on origin/gigawatt/aw-week3-release-20261005 at e157376e. One long paste becomes a Fast Track opener, then about ten questions one at a time; design-v<n>.md becomes prd-v<n>.md plus one agent-<role>.md per new agent; seats carry a kind; the seven questions are a check in section 4, not a gate; Gigawatt answers build questions through questions-for-gigawatt-<n>.md and answers-from-gigawatt-<n>.md; a clean Archie copy writes checker-v1.md before the yes; Archie drafts all five test cases; the lesson ends at prd-v1 and its check.
Sources. Archie as merged (package/.claude/agents/aibl-archie.md); aibl-workflow-design/references/prd-template.md (section numbers cited on the page); course/workforce/week3/team-shape.md; the Chief's approved-sources.md rule; handoffs/aw-week3-ex2-20261005/ (lessons/MODULE3-LESSON-NOTES-DRAFT.md Lesson 1, the final plan R5 to R10, R20, R21, R30, the v2 addendum items 2, 6, 8, 15, INTERFACES.md sections 1, 2, 4, 5). The newsletter example is made up and labeled.
Open questions for Sara. (1) Test cases: Archie drafts them now; keep it that way, or add back a short Professor step before Archie? (2) Stop at prd-v1 and move every change to the next lesson, as here, or let students answer Archie's open questions today? (3) The PRD template has no starting-point field; add one? (4) L5-5: Archie's body and aibl-team-flow disagree on whether Scratch needs a research connector in Claude Code; Archie's body should match before release.
Tyler's rulings, 8 October ("go with your picks"). Files: Part 2 has no Chief step and no yes of its own. The files go in library, Archie writes them as lines in PRD section 5 ("The owner's files for this team"), the design yes next lesson approves them for the team's department once for the batch, and the Chief has Sallee file them before the team's first job (aibl-team-flow step 4). Departments: six, Sales and Growth included; the roster always shows a Sales heading now, and a Sales and a Growth team pass the team check (tests/test_week3_m3_rulings.py). Neither path has been run in an app yet.
Tyler's ChatPRD asks, 8 October evening. Part 4: questions come with likely answers; the table's "Use your best judgment" row becomes "Decide for me" (never for a gate, a send, money or a never); corrections are noted in interview-notes.md. Part 5: owner-summary-v1.md in the file list and What you'll keep; the check adds a scorecard and F1 to F3, which decide nothing. PENDING: no app run yet.
Tyler's asks 2 and 3, 8 October afternoon. Archie asks which tools the work lives in, shows how to connect any that aren't, and asks once "Can I look through these to see how you do this work now?" (part of the design conversation, not a door). On the student's line the Chief routes the reads to Newman, Echo and Hatch (10 to 20, at most 25), and Archie writes examples.md and current-practice.md, redacted. Cases carry Source:. Students never dig up examples. PENDING: no app run yet; Newman's design-examples pass reuses its inbox listing and card passes under the wake design-<job>.
Earlier this week you used a team built for you, Customer Support. Today you design your own, for one piece of your work that comes around every week or month.
The Architect (Archie), the agent that designs teams, asks you about ten questions, one at a time. Then it writes a PRD, short for product requirements document: one file that says what the team is for, how the work moves, which agents do it, and how you'll know it worked. A clean copy of Archie checks it for mistakes.
Nothing is built or approved today. Next lesson you say yes to one version, in your own words. Then the Operator (Gigawatt) builds the team, the team goes on the record (the list of teams your Chief of Staff can run), and you test it.
A first PRD for your new team, the check's findings, and your list of changes.
A team is cheapest to fix before it exists. A line in a PRD takes a minute to change. A built agent takes a lesson.
You choose the work, answer in your own words, and push back when Archie gets something wrong. Archie drafts; you correct.
Before you start
- Have two numbers ready: how long this work takes you now, and how often it's late or doesn't get done.
- Set aside about half an hour for Archie, in one sitting if you can.
- You use up to three threads: one with the Course Companion (The Professor), one with Archie, and one with your Chief of Staff if Archie looks through your tools.
- In Codex, you never talk to an agent directly: Codex passes your words on. Start your first message to an agent with "Ask the <agent> to do this, and show me its reply word for word:". Start every message after that, your answers included, with "Tell the <agent> this, word for word, and show me its reply word for word:".
Start or resume this lesson
Thread: a new one with The Professor. Open your prepared workbench, start a new thread, call The Professor by its role name, aibl-the-professor, and paste only this.
Use the native aibl-the-professor agent to start the Week 3 lesson "Design a team for your own work, with Archie". Read course/workforce/week3/prompts/anw-w3-l05.txt and course/workforce/week3/lessons/anw-w3-l05.md. Ask me one question at a time and wait. I will talk to Archie in its own thread.
The full instructions your agent follows for this lesson are in course/workforce/week3/prompts/anw-w3-l05.txt. This is your lesson thread. Keep it open.
You tell The Professor which work you want a team for. It reads back your End of Week 2 note and the goal you saved in "Write a goal an agent can finish", helps you check the work fits a five-agent team, and gives you a few lines to paste to Archie, your goal first.
Five roles, the same shape as Customer Support
Your team has the same five roles as Customer Support. Archie fills each role with a seat: one agent on your roster. Each seat has a kind:
- new: built for this team.
- reused: an agent you already have, from this team's department.
- borrowed: an agent you already have from another department. It keeps its home there.
| Role | What it does | In Customer Support | In your new team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead | Plans each job and pulls the others' work together. Doesn't research, write or review | Support Lead (Holler) | Always new, modeled on the Support Lead |
| Internal knowledge researcher | Answers from your own approved material, with a source for each answer | Internal Knowledge Researcher (Hatch) | Usually Hatch, borrowed |
| External researcher | Checks outside facts that must be current | External Researcher (Scratch) | Usually Scratch, borrowed |
| Specialist | Does the core job: the thing your expertise makes | Communications Writer (You've Got Mail) | New, or an agent you already have in this team's department, if it does something no other seat on this team does |
| Quality reviewer | Checks the result, and never checks its own work | Quality Reviewer (Kansa) | Usually Kansa. Never new |
The specialist
The specialist does something no other seat on this team does. Usually it's a new agent; sometimes one you already have in the same department fits, like your Voice Analyst (Echo) for a Marketing team. To find yours, ask: what judgment does this work need that only I would make today?
The example in this lesson is made up: a monthly client newsletter. Its specialist is a trend picker. It decides which change in your field matters most to your clients this month, and what it means for them.
The department, and your starting point
Your new team goes in one of six departments: Customer Support, Marketing, Operations, Quality, Sales or Growth. If your work fits none of them, The Professor helps you pick the closest. More detail: picking the department.
Your starting point is what this work costs you today: how long it takes, and how often it's late or doesn't get done. In Week 4 you compare the team's work with it.
Do this now: tell The Professor your work
Thread: your lesson thread with The Professor. Say this:
Read back my End of Week 2 note and the goal I saved. Then ask me, one question at a time, about the work for my new team, its department, what its specialist does, and my starting point. Use my words, not yours. At the end, read it all back as a few lines I can paste to Archie, my goal first.
When it asks about your specialist, say first whether you think it does something no other seat does. Then hear whether The Professor agrees.
No note, or an idea that doesn't fit? The Professor helps you find another piece of your work. Marketing work fits well, like turning research into content. Images and video don't: no agent in your organization makes them.
You copy the files this work needs into your library folder, and give Archie their names in Part 3. Your yes to the design next lesson approves them for the team's department, all at once: the Knowledge Librarian (Sallee) files each one as a source card before the team's first job. There's no separate yes.
Gather what the team would read to do this job well. For the newsletter: past issues, and notes on your clients. Files you approved in Week 1 and the cards Sallee filed in Week 2 already count. When Hatch can't find something, it says so. You don't need to dig up examples of your past work either: in Part 4, Archie asks which tools this work lives in, and whether it can look.
Do this now: copy in the files
Open your workbench folder in Finder (Mac) or File Explorer (Windows), then library, and copy in the files. Text files work best; for a PDF or Word file, save a text copy next to it.
What you should see: your files in library, with the names you'll give Archie. Archie asks why each one matters and writes them into your design, one line each, placed with your department.
You start a thread with Archie on Fast Track, its short brainstorm: about ten questions, then a first PRD with the gaps marked in plain view. More detail: Fast Track and Full Track.
Do this now: open Archie's thread
Thread: a new one with Archie. In Claude Code, start a new thread, type @ and pick aibl-archie. In Codex, start a new thread and begin with "Ask the Architect (Archie) to do this, and show me its reply word for word:". Say this, with the lines The Professor read back where it says so:
Fast Track. Read my goal first: <the seven lines of my goal, as The Professor read them back>. I want a team for that work, in the five-role shape in course/workforce/week3/team-shape.md. In my words: <the work, who gets it and how often, the department, what the specialist does, and my starting point>. The files for this team are in my library: <the file names>.
What you should see: Archie's first reply does three things.
- Says back what it heard, your goal first, in its own words, and asks whether it heard you right.
- Confirms Fast Track.
- Proposes a job folder, like
runs/2026-10-06-team-newsletter/. Everything for this team lives there.
If the restatement is off, say so now, in the same thread. When it's right, agree the folder.
You answer about ten questions, one at a time. Most come with likely answers: pick one, or answer your own way. A long, messy answer is fine; Archie sorts it. If it gets something wrong, say so, and it notes the correction. Every few answers it says "Let me make sure I have this right," sums up, and asks "What did I miss?"
More detail: what Archie asks about.
When Archie asks to look at how you do it now
Archie asks which tools this work lives in: your mail, a documents folder, your order or customer system. For any you haven't connected, it shows you where: in Claude Code, Settings, then Connectors; in Codex, the Plugins page. You connect them yourself. Then it asks once: "Can I look through these to see how you do this work now?" If you're happy for it to look, say yes in your own words. It's part of this conversation, not a new door.
Do this now, after your yes: start the look
Thread: a new one with your Chief of Staff. In Claude Code, type @ and pick aibl-chief-of-staff. In Codex, begin with "Ask the Chief of Staff to do this, and show me its reply word for word:". Say this:
Pull the examples in runs/<your job folder>/design/examples-request.md.
Your Chief has your agents find 10 to 20 past examples of this work in those tools, whole jobs first, then pieces. Everything stays on your computer. When your Chief says they're in, tell Archie, in its thread:
The examples are in.
What you should see: Archie tells you how you do this work today, from your real examples, and asks what it missed. It writes that down in your design folder, with names, email addresses and amounts blanked out. If it finds none, it starts from scratch. You can also give Archie examples yourself, as files in library.
Three ways to answer when you don't know
| You say | What Archie does |
|---|---|
| "Go research it." | Sends one question to Scratch and adds the answer to the PRD with its source. Your private details never go into a web search. If Scratch can't search the web from your app, Archie gives you the search to run yourself |
| "I don't know yet." | After two tries, writes the question down as UNKNOWN: and moves on |
| "Decide for me." | Picks the smallest safe answer and puts it in the PRD as ASSUMPTION:, where you see it before you approve. Never for sending, money or a "never" |
Some questions only Gigawatt can answer, like whether a tool is on your roster. Archie asks a fresh copy through a file. Asking builds nothing. More detail: research, and questions for Gigawatt.
Before it writes
Archie plays the whole design back in a few lines and asks "What did I miss?" Then it writes the PRD. Anything still open is listed in it. More detail: when something is still open.
Do this now: answer, one question at a time
Thread: the same one with Archie. Answer in your own words. Correct each play-back against what you meant. If you have to stop, come back to this same thread.
You read your PRD and the check with The Professor, and list what you'd change.
What Archie wrote
When it's done, Archie replies briefly with the card in plain words, any facts it still needs, and where the files are. In your job folder, under design:
prd-v1.md: the PRD.agent-lead.md, andagent-specialist.mdif the specialist is new: one spec per new agent. Gigawatt builds from these.checker-v1.md: the check.owner-summary-v1.md: the whole design on one page. Read it first.interview-notes.md: your answers, in your words.
If a file is missing, ask Archie for it by name, in the same thread. More detail: every file in your design folder.
The check, and the status line
A clean copy of Archie reads the PRD and assumes it's wrong. It lists what it found, up to five things it could not verify, five scores from 0 to 10, and its top three fixes, F1 to F3. The scores decide nothing. It fixes nothing; you decide. The card's Checked by: line says who checked. More detail: the check and the Checked by line.
The status line reads one of two things:
- Draft: something critical is still open, and section 7 lists it.
- Ready for review: nothing critical is open, and the check has run. It isn't approved. Approving is your call, next lesson.
What a card looks like
runs/2026-10-06-team-newsletter/design/prd-v1.md
a made-up example, shortened
# PRD: the monthly client newsletter
## The card
- Job: each month, tell clients the one change in our field that matters to them
- Who receives the result: my clients, after I approve it
- What done looks like: a draft with every fact sourced, in my voice
- Seats:
- aibl-newsletter-lead | Lead | new
- aibl-hatch | Internal knowledge researcher | borrowed
- aibl-scratch | External researcher | borrowed
- aibl-trend-picker | Specialist | new
- aibl-kansa | Quality reviewer | borrowed
- Status: Draft
- Track: Fast
- Version: prd-v1
- Checked by: <model>, independent check, see checker-v1.md
Highlighted: the seats with their kinds, and the status line.
Section 3.3 of your PRD holds the flow as text. Drawn out, the newsletter team looks like this. More detail: the flow drawing.
Diagram: The made-up newsletter team, drawn from its PRD.Highlighted: the two new agents. Your Chief of Staff passes the work at every arrow.
Five checks
You don't need every line today. Check these five things.
| Check | Where | What you should find |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Your team | The card, Seats: | Five roles, one seat each, each with its kind. The lead is new. The reviewer isn't new and didn't produce the work |
| 2. Your starting point | Section 1, what happens today | Your numbers, in your words, and the real examples it used (or "none, net-new") |
| 3. Your test cases | Section 2 | Five cases, each with Input:, Should:, Fails if:, Run count: and Source:. Case 1 comes from a real example when there is one. One of cases 2 to 4 marked held_out: true |
| 4. What gets built | Section 8 | One block per new agent, and nothing else |
| 5. What's still open | Section 7, and the check's "could not verify" lines | Gaps and guesses, most important first |
Your five test cases
Archie drafts five test cases from your answers, always the same five kinds: an ordinary job, the same job for a different audience, missing information, sources that disagree, and one the team must refuse. Later in this module the team runs each one as an observational eval with TOAST: you take the output, observe it, analyze why, stick one change back in, and test again. So each case should be one you'd recognize from your own work. Each case says how many times it runs, as Run count:: once, and three times for the one it must refuse. Archie also keeps one of cases 2 to 4 back, marked held_out: true. Gigawatt never sees it while it builds; it runs only after the build, in the check and in the suite. Why: so the team is built for the job, not for the test. More detail: the newsletter's five cases, and the seven questions section 4 asks about each new agent.
Do this now: read and note
Before you open the check, guess one thing it will find. Then see whether it did.
Thread: back in your lesson thread with The Professor. Say this:
Walk me through my newest prd and checker files under runs/<my job folder>/design/, read only. Take the five checks on the page one at a time. I judge first, then tell me if you agree. At the end, read back what I want changed, in my words.
Keep that list. Your changes and your yes happen together, next lesson. If Archie asks for your yes today, say in its thread: "Not yet. I'll review it next lesson."
If you get stuck
| What you notice | What to do |
|---|---|
| Archie asks several big questions at once | In Archie's thread, say: "One question at a time, please." |
| The lead isn't new, or the reviewer is new or also produced the work | In Archie's thread, say: "The lead is always new. The quality reviewer is never new, and never checks its own work." |
| Archie hands you a search to run | Save what you find as a text file in library, as in Part 2, and give Archie its name. Or, in Archie's thread, say "Leave it UNKNOWN." |
| Archie says your material is thin | Add more files to library as in Part 2, then give Archie their names, in its thread. |
Checked by: reads not checked yet | In Archie's thread, say: "Run the check on prd-v1 before I review it." |
| Archie says it built, staged or installed something | It shouldn't. In Archie's thread, say: "This is a design only. Build nothing." |
| In Codex, the reply proposes no job folder and names no files | Codex may have answered for Archie. In the same thread, ask again, starting with "Ask the Architect (Archie) to". |
What you'll keep
Your job folder, runs/<date>-team-<name>/design/, with prd-v1.md, owner-summary-v1.md, the agent-<role>.md files, checker-v1.md and interview-notes.md. And your list of changes.
Before you finish
Check what is on your screen:
Self-assessed. No gate.
Words you now own
- PRD: Archie's design file,
prd-v<n>.md. A new version is a new file. - Seat and kind: one agent on the team; new, reused or borrowed.
- Specialist: does something no other seat on this team does.
- Starting point: what the work costs you today.
- UNKNOWN and ASSUMPTION: a question left open, and a guess you agreed to carry.
- The check: a clean copy of Archie looking for what is wrong.
- Held-out case: one of cases 2 to 4 that Gigawatt never sees while it builds.
- Observational eval: running a test case against what you expected, with TOAST.
Next: check Archie's design, change it, and approve it.