An org chart of agents, and the documents that make them work
This document defines the organizational architecture for the two agentic companies we run on the Project Rapido stack — GEB (Global Economic Bridge) and Octaflow — as an org chart of generic, reusable roles, and it specifies, per role, which organizational documents must feed that agent's system prompt and why.
An agent in this system is not a chat persona. It is a role whose behaviour is the sum of four Paperclip artifacts (AGENTS.md, SOUL.md, HEARTBEAT.md, TOOLS) plus the source documents those artifacts point at. The artifacts are the shape of the role; the organizational documents are the substance. A role with a good SOUL.md but no company documentation to reference will produce confident, well-worded, wrong work. The point of this document is to make the substance explicit so Aman and Rajan know exactly what to write and hand over.
Role definitions, hierarchy, the document catalogue, the role×document matrix, and a compulsory/good-to-have classification. Out of scope: the per-role AGENTS/SOUL/HEARTBEAT/TOOLS themselves.
Design principles
One role catalogue serves both companies; documents feed prompts rather than being copied into them; the org spans two planes; human oversight is a role; and every company starts small and grows by need.
companies/ library — the same handful of roles (CEO, CTO, QA, Reviewer, Release, Research) recur across 16 companies and 440+ agents; specialization is configuration, not new archetypes.
The org chart
Solid lines are reporting/delegation. The governance spine is Board → CEO → (COO, CTO). The execution arm hangs off the CTO (technical) and COO (throughput/quality). Roles below the dotted "good-to-have" line (Chief of Staff, Skills Architect, Workflow Designer, Build Engineers, Design Reviewer, and — for Octaflow — Security/Compliance) are absorbed by their parent until volume justifies a dedicated agent.
Role catalogue
Each role is generic; the GEB and Octaflow columns show how it is adapted. "Plane" is where the agent primarily lives.
| # | Role | Mandate (generic) | Plane | GEB adaptation | Octaflow adaptation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CEO (lead) | Own goals/budget proposals, delegate, run the blocking quality gate, sign delivery | Paperclip | Approves each reviewed deliverable before it reaches a buyer | Approves each House deliverable / shipped skill |
| 2 | COO | Throughput, coordination, budget tracking, keep the board moving | Paperclip | Keeps runs flowing across products; watches per-run cost | Keeps the 6 Houses / 4-tier ladder moving; watches build cost |
| 3 | CTO | Own the technical system + the Architect gate; runtime, skills, seam, evals | both | Owns the GEB Shared Runtime + per-product config | Owns the build stack, repo standards, CI, the seam |
| 4 | Chief of Staff | Route incoming work, groom backlog, reduce CEO polling | Paperclip | Triages buyer submissions into runs | Triages House requests / marketplace intake |
| 5 | Skills Architect / Librarian | Own the skills library: Penelope sync, agentshield scan, skills.lock | both | Curates the skills each product resolves to | Curates Marketplace / House skills; skill production |
| 6 | Workflow Designer | Design the runtime/workflow patterns the engineers execute | Fusion | Maintains the 9-stage decisioning pattern | Designs House-specific pipelines |
| 7 | Runtime / Lead Engineer | Execute the work: run the runtime (GEB) or build features (Octaflow) | Fusion | GEB Runtime Engineer — executes a run per mandate | Lead Engineer — builds skills/products |
| 8 | Build Engineers | Backend / frontend / fullstack build capacity | Fusion | Rarely needed (research house) | Backend/Frontend/Fullstack per House at scale |
| 9 | Research Analyst | Gather and classify evidence for a decision or a build | Fusion | Core — source material, seller/spec verification | Market/competitor research for a House |
| 10 | QA / Quality Auditor | Verify output obeys the gates before it ships | Fusion | Runs behavioral checks against the rubric | Runs behavioral evals against skill GATES |
| 11 | Code Reviewer | Review build work for correctness before merge | Fusion | N/A (little code) | Reviews skill/product code pre-merge |
| 12 | Security / Compliance Auditor | agentshield, sanctioned-jurisdiction, evidence-policy enforcement | both | Compulsory — sanctions + evidence integrity | (g) — skill security manifests |
| 13 | Release / CI Engineer | Merge, ship, deploy; own the pre/post-merge gates | Fusion | Publishes the reviewed deliverable | Ships skills to the Marketplace / deploys |
| 14 | Design Reviewer / Creative | Brand, voice, UI, marketing output | Fusion | Light — deliverable formatting/voice | Octaflow creative/marketing Houses |
| — | Board / Principals (human) | Strategy, budget, hiring approval, source documents, kill switch | above both | Aman/Rajan/David | Aman/Rajan/David |
Organizational document catalogue
These are the source documents that nourish the agents' system prompts. They are authored/owned by the board and live in the seam repo (read-only to most roles). Each entry: what it is and why an agent needs it. Ownership/provisioning is assigned separately with the board.
| Key | Document | What it contains | Why an agent needs it |
|---|---|---|---|
| D1 | Vision & Charter | Why the company exists, mission, mandate, north-star, non-goals | Without it, agents optimize locally and drift from intent; it is the tie-breaker for every judgment call |
| D2 | Product & Use-case Catalogue | The products/use cases and their per-item config (GEB: product cards; Octaflow: 6 Houses + 4-tier ladder) | Tells the agent what it is producing and for whom; the runtime resolves specifics from here |
| D3 | System / Software Architecture | The two-plane stack, the seam, northcheck deployment, runtime design, external interfaces | Agents that touch the system must know its shape or they build against the wrong seam |
| D4 | Development Conventions | Repo layout, PROMPT.md spec, branch/merge rules, the Agent Companies standard, naming | Keeps execution agents' output mergeable and reviewable; the "house style" of building |
| D5 | Skills Catalogue & Production Method | The skill file architecture (SKILL/GATES/SECURITY/VOICE/modules), the Changes Register, Penelope as source of truth | Skills/runtime agents must know how a skill is structured, versioned, and imported safely |
| D6 | Quality Gates & Rubrics | GATES.md, behavioral evals, red-flag list, the Architect gate and CEO gate definitions | The acceptance criteria for every output; QA/CTO/CEO cannot gate without it |
| D7 | Security, Compliance & Evidence Policy | SECURITY manifests, agentshield rules, sanctioned jurisdictions, evidence classes (Verified/Claimed/Not-found), trust boundaries | Hard, deterministic constraints; the difference between a defensible deliverable and a liability |
| D8 | Brand & Voice Guide | VOICE_CARD, tone, output modes, formatting standards | Anything customer-facing must sound like the company; prevents off-brand deliverables |
| D9 | Budget & Economics Model | Model lanes/costs, per-company budgets, cost-per-run targets ("do the math") | COO/CEO must trade throughput against spend; sets the cheap-execute/strong-review split |
| D10 | Roadmap & OKRs | Goals, priorities, short/long term plan, sequencing | Turns the vision into what to do this cycle; the CEO/COO planning input |
| D11 | Glossary & Domain Terminology | Canonical terms (GEB commodity terms; Octaflow: Lark Base, AnyCross, Ask Penelope, House names) | Prevents term drift and mis-resolution across agents and models |
| D12 | Data & Integrations Spec | APIs (Paperclip, Fusion), Langfuse/OTel, webhooks, external interfaces | Agents that call or measure the system need the contract, endpoints, and auth model |
| D13 | Governance & Escalation Policy | Approval gates, human-in-the-loop points, roles/permissions, the kill switch | Defines what agents may decide vs. must escalate; the guardrail on autonomy |
Role × document matrix
Which documents feed each role's system prompt. R = required (the role is unsafe/ineffective without it) · H = helpful (improves quality, not load-bearing) · blank = not needed.
| Role \ Doc | D1 Vision | D2 Use-cases | D3 Arch | D4 Conv | D5 Skills | D6 Gates | D7 Sec | D8 Voice | D9 Budget | D10 Roadmap | D11 Gloss | D12 Data | D13 Gov |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CEO | R | R | H | H | R | R | H | R | R | H | R | ||
| COO | R | R | H | H | H | H | R | R | H | H | R | ||
| CTO | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | H | H | R | R | R | |
| Chief of Staff | R | R | H | H | H | R | R | R | |||||
| Skills Architect | H | R | R | R | R | R | R | H | R | H | H | ||
| Workflow Designer | H | R | R | R | R | R | H | H | R | H | |||
| Runtime / Lead Eng | H | R | R | R | R | R | R | H | R | R | H | ||
| Build Engineers | R | R | R | H | R | H | R | R | |||||
| Research Analyst | H | R | R | R | H | R | H | ||||||
| QA / Quality Auditor | R | H | H | R | R | R | H | R | |||||
| Code Reviewer | H | R | R | H | R | R | R | H | |||||
| Security / Compliance | H | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | ||||
| Release / CI Eng | H | R | R | R | H | H | R | H | |||||
| Design Reviewer | H | R | H | R | R | R |
The CEO's row says the CEO system prompt must reference the Vision (D1), the use-case catalogue (D2), the gates and evidence policy (D6/D7), the budget (D9), the roadmap (D10) and the governance policy (D13) — because the CEO's job is to judge finished work against intent, cost and rules and to decide what to run next. It does not need dev conventions (D4) or the data/integration contract (D12) — those are execution concerns it delegates.
Any document with many R's is a keystone, and writing it well pays off across the whole org. D2 (use-cases), D6 (gates) and D7 (security/evidence) are required by nearly every role and should be authored first. D3 (architecture) and D11 (glossary) are the next tier.
Compulsory vs. good-to-have documents
Which of the source documents (D1–D13) a company must have before it can run, and which can be authored as it scales. Compulsory = a governed, gated, safe cycle cannot run without it. Good-to-have = it raises quality, consistency, or economics; a first cycle can run without it, and it is authored as volume grows.
Compulsory documents
| Doc | Why it cannot be skipped |
|---|---|
| D1 · Vision & Charter | The tie-breaker for every judgment call; without it agents optimize locally and drift from intent. |
| D2 · Product & Use-case Catalogue | Tells every agent what it produces and for whom; the runtime resolves specifics from here. Required by nearly every role. |
| D3 · System / Software Architecture | Agents that touch the system build against the wrong seam without it. |
| D5 · Skills Catalogue & Production Method | The runtime resolves skills per product; safe import (agentshield, skills.lock) needs the method. |
| D6 · Quality Gates & Rubrics | The acceptance criteria for every output; no Architect/CEO/QA gate can run without it. |
| D7 · Security, Compliance & Evidence Policy | Hard, deterministic constraints; the line between a defensible deliverable and a liability. Hardest limit for GEB. |
| D12 · Data & Integrations Spec | The seam, the bridge and the eval rail can't be wired without endpoints, auth, and the OTel/Langfuse contract. |
| D13 · Governance & Escalation Policy | Defines what agents may decide vs. must escalate — and holds the kill switch. |
Good-to-have documents (author as you scale)
| Doc | Why it can wait / when it becomes compulsory |
|---|---|
| D4 · Development Conventions | Keeps build output mergeable; a research cycle runs without it. Compulsory for Octaflow (a build shop). |
| D8 · Brand & Voice Guide | Polishes customer-facing output. Compulsory once shipping customer-facing deliverables / Houses. |
| D9 · Budget & Economics Model | A first cycle runs without a formal cost model. High-priority for GEB / the COO — cost-per-run is the Rapido thesis. |
| D10 · Roadmap & OKRs | You can run one workflow without a full roadmap; it turns vision into this-cycle priorities as work scales. |
| D11 · Glossary & Domain Terminology | Prevents term drift — the highest-R good-to-have (a keystone by density); a cycle runs while it is being written. |
Minimal viable document set, per company
- GEB (research/decisioning house): the 8 compulsory documents, with D7 authored to full depth first (sanctioned jurisdictions + evidence classes) and D9 + D11 (commodity terms) as the first good-to-have adds — evidence integrity and run economics are the product.
- Octaflow (build/skills shop): the 8 compulsory documents, with D4 (conventions) and D8 (voice) promoted to compulsory because it ships built, customer-facing House deliverables; D5 (skills method) carries extra weight as the Marketplace / skill-production backbone.
Sources consulted
The role models and platform behind the catalogue, the OctaFlow internal briefs that supply the substance, and the prior Project Rapido artifacts this generalises.
External references — role models & platform
github.com/paperclipai/companies — 16 companies & rosters; the recurring roles behind §4 (Superpowers, AgentSys, Aeon, TÂCHES, RedOak)↗ Paperclip platform
github.com/paperclipai/paperclip — the agent-as-a-role model and the four artifacts (AGENTS/SOUL/HEARTBEAT/TOOLS)↗ Headcount Zero / Zero-Employee Company book
github.com/AnthonyDavidAdams/zero-employee-company-book — "founder + kill switch"; the Board / Principals layer (§2.4)↗ Paperclip Company Playbook (Aron Prins)
github.com/aronprins/paperclip-company-playbook — the blocking CEO / Architect quality gate and the maturity rule (D6)↗
OctaFlow internal briefs & architecture
- Project Rapido operating manual —
context-docs/project-rapido-operating-manual.md. The two-plane stack (Paperclip governance → Fusion execution), the seam and the Agent Companies standard, Langfuse-over-OTel measurement, models-per-layer. Basis for §2.3 and D3 / D12 / D13. - High-level architecture proposal (v2) —
project-rapido/03-architecture/high-level-architecture-proposal.md. Northcheck deployment, the seam as a shared repo, the Penelope skill-sync plugin. Basis for D3 and D5. - GEB build plan —
context-docs/geb_build_plan.html. The GEB delivery engine, the Architect gate, and the per-product rubric/scoring. Informed the CTO's Architect-gate mandate and the GEB adaptations in §4. - Octaflow build plan —
context-docs/octaflow_build_plan.html. The six Houses, the 4-tier ladder, and the Gates (slop / Architect / security). Informed the Octaflow adaptations in §4 and D2. - GEB Shared Runtime pattern —
context-docs/Penelope-Shared-Runtime.workflow.jsonandproject-rapido/03-architecture/guides/simulated-geb-workflow-guide.md. The product-agnostic decision runtime and its 9-stage pattern; source of the "config per product, not code per product" principle (§2.2) and the Workflow Designer / Runtime Engineer roles. - Skill-production methodology —
CLAUDE.md,context-docs/Skill_Builder_Briefing_for_Fede_v0_4.md,context-docs/OctaFlow_Engineering_Onboarding_Brief_v2.md. The skill file architecture (SKILL / GATES / SECURITY / VOICE / modules) and the Changes Register. Basis for D5 and D6.
Prior Project Rapido artifacts
- CEO & CTO agent artifact sets (GEB, in
geb-sim/) — the already-compiled four-artifact examples this document generalises into the role × document mapping and the compile order.