How to Build an AI Agent by Writing Down Your Job
20 Aug 2026
Twenty-seven AI agents. None of them human. No code anywhere.
Twenty-seven AI agents. None of them human. No code anywhere.
Newsletter 040 is out tomorrow early morning. And what's inside?
Here is the big idea: you do not build an agent. You write down your job.
The whole thing is plain English in a text file, written the way you would brief a new assistant on their first morning. Which inbox. Which folder. When to stop and ask.
Thirty-nine things in total once you count the small scheduled jobs, and every one of them runs inside a single laptop.
What is inside:
1. The five parts of an agent file, shown with a real one (most of it blurred, for obvious reasons)
2. Why so many capable people say they cannot keep up with AI, and what that feeling usually means
3. Wednesday evening at the #OpenDoorInnovation meetup in Zürich
🤖 One more thing. If your company has approved Claude and you use it in your day to day work, there is an invitation waiting for you in there.
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What would you write down first?
Why 'keeping up with AI' is the wrong goal
The leaders I coach rarely ask me how to keep up with AI anymore. They ask me why they still feel behind, even after using it every day. That feeling almost never comes from a skills gap. It comes from treating AI as one more thing to learn, instead of a new way to hand off work you already know how to do.
Writing an agent file forces a different kind of thinking. You have to say, out loud, exactly how you want something done: what a good result looks like, what counts as a mistake, when the AI should stop and check with you instead of guessing. That is the same skill you would use to brief a new hire well, and most senior leaders already have it. They just have not pointed it at AI yet.
I saw this again this week at our #OpenDoorInnovation meetup in Zürich, watching people who lead teams light up the moment they realised what was actually missing: permission to treat AI like a junior team member instead of a search engine.
If this resonates and you want a practical guide, I have a free AI Tools & Tips Guide that walks through the AI tools I actually use as a coach and business owner, with real workflows. Leave your email here and I will send it over: https://www.thechangerepublic.com/free-resources