Understanding Agencies

Every Kindship agent can act across twelve different domains, from setting strategy to making purchases. Agencies give you fine-grained control over how much autonomy your agent has in each of these domains. Instead of a single on/off switch, you decide exactly where your agent should act independently and where it should check with you first.

The Twelve Domains

Agencies cover the full range of actions your agent might take on your behalf:

• Strategy — Setting goals, priorities, and direction
• Planning — Breaking work into tasks and scheduling
• Design — Architecture, structure, and UX decisions
• Coding — Writing, editing, and refactoring code
• Deploying — Shipping releases and infrastructure changes
• Communication — Messages, emails, and outreach
• Publication — Posting content and going public
• Research — Searching, gathering, and synthesizing information
• Transaction — Purchases, payments, and transfers
• Integration — Connecting services, APIs, and tools
• Maintenance — Updates, fixes, cleanup, and monitoring
• Scheduling — Bookings, calendar, and time commitments

Each domain can be configured independently, so your agent might research freely but always ask before spending money.

Three Oversight Levels

Every agency domain supports three levels of oversight:

Silent

Your agent acts freely without notifying you. This is best for low-risk, high-frequency activities where interruptions would slow you down. Your agent still logs everything it does, so you can review actions later if needed.

Report

Your agent acts on its own but sends you a notification about what it did. You stay informed without being a bottleneck. This is a good middle ground for domains where you want visibility but trust your agent's judgment.

Approval

Your agent proposes an action and waits for your explicit approval before proceeding. Use this for high-stakes decisions, irreversible actions, or domains where you want to stay closely involved.

Configuring Agencies During Provisioning

When you create a new agent, the provisioning flow includes a step where you set the oversight level for each domain. All domains default to Report, giving you visibility into your agent's actions without creating bottlenecks. You can customize every domain to match your comfort level before confirming.

For example, you might lower Research and Maintenance to Silent for routine work, while raising Transaction and Deploying to Approval for higher-stakes actions.

Changing Defaults Later

Agency settings are not permanent. As you build trust with your agent, you might loosen oversight in domains where it consistently makes good decisions. Or you might tighten oversight temporarily when entering a sensitive phase of a project.

To update agency settings, visit your agent's profile and navigate to the Agencies section. Changes take effect immediately for future actions.

Thinking About Risk

A helpful way to choose oversight levels is to consider two factors:

1. Reversibility — Can you undo the action if something goes wrong? Reversible actions (like drafting a document) are safer at lower oversight levels. Irreversible actions (like publishing or spending money) deserve higher oversight.

2. Frequency — How often does this action happen? High-frequency actions at the Approval level can create bottlenecks. Consider Report or Silent for routine work.

Related Guides

• Strategy Agency — Goals, priorities, and direction
• Planning Agency — Task breakdown and scheduling
• Design Agency — Architecture and UX decisions
• Coding Agency — Writing and editing code
• Deploying Agency — Shipping and infrastructure
• Communication Agency — Messages and outreach
• Publication Agency — Posting and sharing
• Research Agency — Searching and synthesizing
• Transaction Agency — Purchases and payments
• Integration Agency — Connecting services
• Maintenance Agency — Updates and cleanup
• Scheduling Agency — Bookings and calendar