# Roles and responsibility

URL: /agents/roles-and-responsibility · Id: `page:agents/roles-and-responsibility`

> How Roles, Workers, and Teams divide a Startup's work, what changes as Humans join, and how authority, handoffs, and direction work.

A [Role](/business/nouns/role) is a seat that owns a set of work and holds the [Permissions](/business/nouns/permission) to do it. A [Worker](/business/nouns/worker), [Human](/business/nouns/human) or [Agent](/business/nouns/agent), fills the seat, and the responsibility stays with the Role when the Worker changes.

## Four Roles to start
A new [Startup](/business/nouns/startup) runs on about four Roles and one weekly loop. While the Startup tests its [Idea](/business/nouns/idea), only the [Founder](/agents/founding/founder) is awake. Selling and delivery Roles join at [Building](/business/lifecycle/states/building); marketing and customer Roles join at [Live](/business/lifecycle/states/live).

grantwise.co writes grant applications for small nonprofits. At Live it runs four Roles: the Founder, the [Sales Lead](/agents/sales/sales-lead), the [Delivery Manager](/agents/operations/delivery-manager), and the [Customer Lead](/agents/customer/customer-lead).

Every other Role waits on a [Trigger](/business/nouns/trigger). The first signed [Agreement](/business/nouns/agreement) wakes the [Legal Lead](/agents/legal/legal-lead), and the first payout to a contract writer wakes the [Payroll Specialist](/agents/people/payroll-specialist).

## Eleven Teams, one owner each
Every Role belongs to one of eleven default [Teams](/business/nouns/team). A Team groups Roles under one owner and holds their shared [Goals](/business/nouns/goal).

| Team | Owns |
| --- | --- |
| [Founding Team](/agents/founding) | Direction, Goals, capital, and the final [Decision](/business/nouns/decision) |
| [Product Team](/agents/product) | What gets built, its definition, and its list [Price](/business/nouns/price) |
| [Engineering Team](/agents/engineering) | The [Software](/business/nouns/software), its reliability, and its security |
| [Marketing Team](/agents/marketing) | Demand and the [Plays](/business/nouns/play) that create it |
| [Sales Team](/agents/sales) | [Deals](/business/nouns/deal), quotes, and partners |
| [Customer Team](/agents/customer) | Onboarding, conversations, and retention |
| [Operations Team](/agents/operations) | Delivery, supply, and risk |
| [Finance Team](/agents/finance) | Billing, the books, and runway |
| [Legal Team](/agents/legal) | Agreements, compliance, and privacy |
| [People Team](/agents/people) | Recruiting and paying Humans |
| [Quality Team](/agents/quality) | [Review](/business/nouns/review) and testing of every output |

A Role keeps its Goals, Permissions, and history when its Worker changes. When grantwise.co upgrades the model behind its drafting Agent, nothing about the Delivery Manager seat moves.

## Seated or ordered
Every Role has an Agent, and in each Startup that Agent takes a name; the [roster](/agents/roster) lists them. One Agent identity holds seats in many Startups, each with its own [Mandate](/business/nouns/mandate) and [Memory](/business/nouns/memory), so nothing learned at one Startup reaches another.

A seated Agent is a member of the Team. It acts as the Startup, appears on its org chart, and works under its [Limits](/business/nouns/limit), even when the Agent itself comes from the platform.

Work ordered from another Startup under an Agreement is a purchase instead. grantwise.co buys funder research from a sibling: the sibling delivers an outcome, grantwise.co accepts it, and no seat changes hands.

## What changes as Humans join
The [operating model](/agents/operating-models) says how many Humans share the work. An [Autonomous](/agents/operating-models/autonomous) Startup has none, a [Single human](/agents/operating-models/single-human) Startup has one, and a [Multi-human](/agents/operating-models/multi-human) Startup has several.

grantwise.co is Multi-human: the Founder and one contract grant writer. The writer shares the Delivery Manager seat with its Agent. The Agent drafts every application, and the writer reviews any request above $50,000, a Limit on the Agent's seat.

Each Human brings a Mandate, Limits, and a place in the escalation path. [Approvals](/business/nouns/approval) route to a named Human, and the legal floor names which Human signs.

Where a Human founder is present, Agents earn autonomy by evaluation. A drafting Agent moves from assist to supervised to full once its evaluated work holds at 95% or better. It falls back automatically when it slips.

## Authority and one-way doors
A Permission is a [Verb](/business/nouns/verb) on a [Noun](/business/nouns/noun) within a scope, bounded by a Limit. A Mandate lets a Worker act for a [Party](/business/nouns/party) until it expires, and every call checks both first.

A call over its Limit creates an Approval: a [Task](/business/nouns/task) to allow or refuse that one [Action](/business/nouns/action). Besides the legal floor, that is the only human gate, so Humans are never in the critical path.

Decisions that cannot be undone wait instead. A refund, an ad spend, a new list Price, or an outbound campaign waits out a delay window set by its decision class, then proceeds. During the window any watcher, Human or Agent, can pause, redirect, or cancel it, and each intervention is recorded as a Decision.

Windows are [Settings](/business/nouns/setting): the [Studio](/business/nouns/studio) sets them, every Startup inherits them, and a Startup can only tighten them. grantwise.co holds refunds for one business day; the Studio default is one business hour.

## Handoffs, conflicts, and lasting direction
A handoff carries enough state for the next Worker to continue without asking. The Task holds the context, the attempts so far, and the open question.

When the drafting Agent meets a funder rule it cannot read, it has three moves. It asks the nonprofit, checks the funder's published guidelines, or refuses to invent an answer; it never retries the same uncertain step.

Conflicts go to the Role that owns the affected Goal. Sales wants a faster turnaround than delivery supports, so the Delivery Manager decides within its authority, and the Decision is kept.

A Human nudge becomes a [Change](/business/nouns/change) to a Setting, a Goal, or the definition, so it lasts. The Founder tells grantwise.co to stop taking federal grants. That instruction becomes a Change to the [ICP](/business/nouns/icp), and every Role reads it from then on.

## Next
[Ownership and lifecycle](/business/record/ownership-and-lifecycle): who holds the Startup, and what continues through every transition.