Anatomy of a Service
A Service sells a finished result under a written promise: its contract, coverage, steps and checkers, its supply, and the three Apps it compiles.
A Service sells a finished result under a written promise. The Startup does the work and answers for it, and the Customer judges the result, not the effort.
Who does the work
Every Product answers one question: who does the work? With Software, the Customer does it with the Startup's tools. With a Service, the Startup does it and the Customer receives the result.
Take catalog cleanup. As Software, it is an App where a store's merchandiser fixes listings by hand. As Catalogmend's Service, the store sends its catalog, and every listing error comes back fixed or explained within 48 hours.
The Interface does not decide the kind. An API that returns suggested fixes sells Software; an API that returns a corrected catalog the Startup stands behind sells a Service. The difference is who answers when a listing is wrong.
The promise
A deadline and a price are not a promise. "Fixed in 48 hours" leaves open what fixed means, who checks it, and what happens when a listing cannot be fixed.
Every Service carries an Outcome Contract on its Offer that settles those questions as typed terms. They state done, who accepts by when, revisions, the deadline, the remedy and the Event that earns, each covered in outcome contracts.
Beside the contract, coverage states what the Service delivers and for which inputs, before any charge: Catalogmend covers online catalogs up to 50,000 listings.
The contract binds the Startup, not any one worker. When an agent stalls on a catalog in a language it does not read and a person finishes it, the Customer's terms do not change.
Steps, each with a checker
Each step is a Verb that runs as a Function: code, one model call, an agent with tools, or a Human. The caller sees the same Action whichever kind runs it.
| Step | Function | Doer | Checker | Assurance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Import the catalog | code | The import Function | A schema check | measured |
| Find each listing error | agentic | The audit agent | An Evaluator on another model | graded |
| Fix each listing | agentic | The fix agent | The same Evaluator, on every fix | graded |
| Check a sample | human | A reviewer | The step re-checks the whole batch | attested |
The doer is never the checker, and a Service's assurance is its weakest check on the way to done. A refund promise needs graded checks, and an outcome price needs measured ones. Offer.publish refuses an Offer whose remedy or price basis its checks cannot back, with contract-unsupported.
A step's Function is part of the definition. Moving the sample check from a person to an agent is a Change like any other. The Offer's promise still passes the same publish check.
Supply
Digital supply has no practical ceiling: each new Order starts another agent. Human supply is finite, so a Service that needs people recruits, verifies and schedules them as Suppliers, and their booked hours cap its volume.
Some steps the law reserves to a credentialed person. Such a step declares its floor, sign or practice, with the Credential it needs and where. Supply and human functions cover both.
Three Apps
| App | Who uses it | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Portal | The buyer and the buyer's agent | Each Order and line, its state, its deadline, and the confirm, revise and dispute choices |
| Supplier app | Each recruited Supplier | Eligible Tasks, Credentials on file with their expiry, the terms of each Task, and earnings |
| Review queue | The Startup's own people | The Tasks each human step and each flagged check sends them |
None is drawn by hand. Each compiles from the steps, the states and who may act on each one.
Buyers that are agents
A Service sells to people and to their agents through the same Verbs. In the b2a Motion, a store's buying agent places the Order over MCP, answers intake questions and reads the delivered report.
It confirms or disputes within the window, under a Mandate its owner granted. Every step it took is on record, by the agent and for the store.
Five shapes
A Startup picks its Service shape with a Product Template. Each answers who does the work and who answers for the result.
| Product Template | Who does the work | Who answers for the result |
|---|---|---|
| Services-as-Software | Agents, end to end | The Startup |
| E2E managed service | Agents, with people in the loop, running a whole business function | The Startup |
| Licensed-human marketplace | Credentialed professionals | Each professional, under their own Agreement |
| Marketplace | Suppliers who deal with buyers directly | Each Supplier |
| Agent as a Service | An agent the Customer directs | The Customer, who directs the work |
The first two are Services. The marketplaces earn a take for matching and settling, while each Supplier answers for their own work. Agent as a Service hires out the worker, not the result: the agent book covers it.
Next
Life of an order follows one catalog audit through every part above.