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Free Agent Skill

Agent Charter

Write a one-page charter for an AI agent or bot staff member: one job, anti-jobs, what needs human approval, what is never allowed, and how it proves work

Use when: Spinning up a new agent, before giving always-on autonomy (including OpenAI dots Custom Rules), or when an existing agent has drifted past its brief

Read the story — Substack issue link coming soon.

Install this skill

Cursor, Claude Code and Codex

  1. Create a folder named `agent-charter`.
  2. Save the skill content below as `SKILL.md` inside that folder.
  3. Place the folder in `.cursor/skills/` for Cursor or `.claude/skills/` for Claude Code (or the equivalent path for Codex).
  4. Describe the task normally. Your agent loads the skill when its description matches.

Use this in ChatGPT or Claude (no code)

  1. Copy or download SKILL.md from this page (or put it in a folder named agent-charter).
  2. Zip that folder so the archive contains agent-charter/SKILL.md.
  3. In ChatGPT (Business, Enterprise, Edu or Healthcare), upload the zip under workspace Skills. In Claude.ai, add a Skill from the zip where your plan supports Skills.
  4. Describe the task in plain language — the skill loads when its description matches.
agent-charter/SKILL.md
---
name: agent-charter
description: Write a one-page charter for an AI agent or bot staff member: one job, anti-jobs, what needs human approval, what is never allowed, and how it proves work. Use when spinning up a new agent, before giving always-on autonomy (including OpenAI dots Custom Rules), or when an existing agent has drifted past its brief.
---

# Agent Charter

Turn a vague “AI assistant that helps with X” into a short, inspectable charter a human and an agent can both follow.

## When to use

- Before connecting an always-on agent to real accounts
- When a new Grok Bot / specialist bot is created
- When reviewing Custom Rules for OpenAI dots or similar products
- After an agent did something outside its intended job

## Inputs to gather

Ask only what you cannot infer. Prefer short answers.

1. **Outcome** — what “good” looks like in one sentence
2. **Audience** — who it serves (and who it must never contact unasked)
3. **Tools / accounts** — what it may touch
4. **Risk appetite** — reversible vs irreversible actions
5. **Proof** — what evidence counts as done

## Charter template (fill every section)

### 1. One job
One sentence. What it does every time it wakes. No “and also”.

### 2. Anti-jobs
What it never does, even if asked. Name adjacent work that belongs to a different person or agent.

### 3. Approvals (human gates)
List actions that need an explicit human yes before they happen. Typical gates:
- Sending email, Slack, or public posts
- Spending money or changing billing
- Deleting or overwriting important data
- Sharing private information outside the workspace
- Connecting new accounts or widening permissions

### 4. Never allowed
Hard bans that built-in safety should reinforce (employer secrets, inventing metrics, acting as the human without saying so, etc.).

### 5. Proof of done
How the agent shows work is finished: open the artefact, cite the source, name the check that passed. “Done” without evidence is not done.

### 6. Quiet rule
When there is nothing useful to report, stay silent.

## Output format

Return a charter the operator can paste into:
- a bot description / system prompt
- OpenAI dots **Custom Rules**
- a team wiki page

Keep it under ~400 words. Plain language. No invented ROI numbers.

## Worked example (illustrative)

**One job:** Draft How I Grok Bot newsletter and LinkedIn posts in Benn’s voice; ship only when he says publish.

**Anti-jobs:** Never auto-post; never write Adobe day-job material; never invent metrics; never CreateAgent.

**Approvals:** Publish to Substack; post to LinkedIn or X; any send as Benn.

**Never allowed:** Employer internals; fake reach numbers; same wall of text on every platform.

**Proof of done:** Draft visible in chat with sources linked; after publish, live URL checked.

**Quiet rule:** No status chatter between briefs.

## When it pays off

Use this before autonomy, not after a mistake. Cheap to write; expensive to skip when an always-on agent can email, spend, or post.

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