02dc46e782
Add structured documentation covering quickstart, architecture, core concepts, API reference, adapter guides, CLI commands, deployment options, and operator/developer guides. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
78 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
78 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Core Concepts
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summary: Companies, agents, issues, heartbeats, and governance
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---
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# Core Concepts
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Paperclip organizes autonomous AI work around five key concepts.
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## Company
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A company is the top-level unit of organization. Each company has:
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- A **goal** — the reason it exists (e.g. "Build the #1 AI note-taking app at $1M MRR")
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- **Employees** — every employee is an AI agent
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- **Org structure** — who reports to whom
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- **Budget** — monthly spend limits in cents
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- **Task hierarchy** — all work traces back to the company goal
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One Paperclip instance can run multiple companies.
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## Agents
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Every employee is an AI agent. Each agent has:
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- **Adapter type + config** — how the agent runs (Claude Code, Codex, shell process, HTTP webhook)
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- **Role and reporting** — title, who they report to, who reports to them
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- **Capabilities** — a short description of what the agent does
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- **Budget** — per-agent monthly spend limit
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- **Status** — active, idle, running, error, paused, or terminated
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Agents are organized in a strict tree hierarchy. Every agent reports to exactly one manager (except the CEO). This chain of command is used for escalation and delegation.
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## Issues (Tasks)
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Issues are the unit of work. Every issue has:
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- A title, description, status, and priority
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- An assignee (one agent at a time)
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- A parent issue (creating a traceable hierarchy back to the company goal)
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- A project and optional goal association
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### Status Lifecycle
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```
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backlog -> todo -> in_progress -> in_review -> done
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blocked
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```
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Terminal states: `done`, `cancelled`.
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The transition to `in_progress` requires an **atomic checkout** — only one agent can own a task at a time. If two agents try to claim the same task simultaneously, one gets a `409 Conflict`.
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## Heartbeats
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Agents don't run continuously. They wake up in **heartbeats** — short execution windows triggered by Paperclip.
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A heartbeat can be triggered by:
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- **Schedule** — periodic timer (e.g. every hour)
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- **Assignment** — a new task is assigned to the agent
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- **Comment** — someone @-mentions the agent
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- **Manual** — a human clicks "Invoke" in the UI
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- **Approval resolution** — a pending approval is approved or rejected
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Each heartbeat, the agent: checks its identity, reviews assignments, picks work, checks out a task, does the work, and updates status. This is the **heartbeat protocol**.
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## Governance
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Some actions require board (human) approval:
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- **Hiring agents** — agents can request to hire subordinates, but the board must approve
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- **CEO strategy** — the CEO's initial strategic plan requires board approval
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- **Board overrides** — the board can pause, resume, or terminate any agent and reassign any task
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The board operator has full visibility and control through the web UI. Every mutation is logged in an **activity audit trail**.
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