How to build and onboard an AI employee
Write the job description, build in the right order, then onboard your AI employee like a new hire: a handbook, a notebook, a playbook and a shift.
2:33Free lesson
Transcript
Last lesson covered what an AI employee is. This one is how you build it. 2 steps before you touch any tool, then the 4 things every new hire gets on day 1.
Before you open any tool, write the job description. List every task your team does by hand. Rank them by pain, not by what is easy. The one burning the most hours is your first hire. Then break it into atomic steps. Every click, every handoff, every what happens if. Skip this, and it breaks the first time real life touches it.
Then build in order. Plain automation for anything that follows a rule. AI only where something has to be read or decided. The agent goes last, for the messy middle. Take vendor invoices. Automation pulls the PDF out of the inbox. AI reads the vendor, the amount, and the job number. The agent handles the odd ones. Most of that job never needed an agent.
Now onboard it like a new hire. First, the handbook. Your customers, what you sell, your prices, your tone, and what you never do. In Claude Code, that is a plain text file called CLAUDE.md. Other tools read one called AGENTS.md. If you would tell a new hire on day 1, it goes in the file.
Second, the notebook. You correct it once. Stop offering discounts in the first email. That correction gets written down, and every job after that starts from those notes. Claude Code calls this auto memory. Explain it 1 time, and it stays explained.
Third, the playbook. Your way of doing the job. Which numbers go in the weekly report, what gets flagged, and what gets skipped. You write it once as a skill, a folder with a file called SKILL.md. Skills are an open standard now, so the same file works in Codex, GitHub Copilot, and dozens of other tools.
Fourth, the shift. Claude Code calls these scheduled tasks. They run in the cloud, with your laptop closed. It is 6:30 in the morning, your phone is still on the nightstand, and the inbox is already sorted. Every run starts fresh, so the handbook, the notebook, and the playbook are all it brings to work.
That is a new hire, fully onboarded. Next lesson: the 1 rule that keeps it safe, and how 1 employee becomes a team.