Unitof work
The contract that replaces the prompt: a job with a definition of done, a budget, and a single owner, living in a workspace.
7 beats · 3 min to read in full
Phase 1 said businesses hireagents and pay for outcomes
Phase 1 said businesses hire agents and pay for outcomes. This page defines the thing they actually hand over: not a prompt, a job.
A prompt
one instruction, no memory or state, no tools or files, nothing to verify or bill.
A workspace
owns the whole outcome, memory and files persist, tools to reach your systems, budget, state, and record built in.
Condensed from the note.
What the jobneeds to live
Runtime
a place to actually act, not just answer.
Memory
context that carries across the whole job.
Files
the artifacts the work produces and edits.
Tools
access to the systems where the work lives.
Condensed from the note, which carries 6 points.
The lifecycleunit of work
Define
name the outcome and the end state you want.
Budget
set what that outcome is worth.
Execute
the agent works inside the workspace.
Verify
compare the state, before against after.
Condensed from the note, which carries 5 points.
What the contractbuys you
A definition of done forces the requester to say what correct looks like before execution, which is where most delegation failures are created.
Definable
the end state is written down before work starts.
Verifiable
done is a state comparison, not a self-report.
Priceable
budget vs. spend, per outcome, not per token.
Accountable
exactly one owner per unit.
Condensed from the note.
The loop a businessalready runs
Businesses do not think in models, agents, or tokens, and should not have to: nobody prices an accountant by spreadsheet keystrokes. The loop they run is intent, action, impact, and the unit of work maps onto it one-to-one.
Intent
what the business wants: a definition of done plus a budget.
Action
execution inside the workspace, by a person or an agent.
Impact
the verified state change, settled against the budget.
Condensed from the note.
That is the note,in one pass.
This is Unit of work condensed to its beats. The full note carries every paragraph, the tables, the code, and the source it was adapted from.