Paperclip AI Company Playbook
The drop-in template pack that turns "I configured a CEO and nothing happens" into a working AI company. Battle-tested CEO SOUL, 12-step HEARTBEAT, worker AGENTS files, PROJECT-INVENTORY, and CONTRIBUTING — every file built around one principle: two layers of verification before anything reaches the founder. Stop being your company's QA department. Copy, fill in the brackets, and ship.
A practical playbook for setting up an AI agent company in Paperclip that actually works. Every mechanism described here exists because its absence caused real failures in production: rework, wasted tokens, frustrated founders, and broken trust. Distilled from running multiple companies in parallel and fixing what broke.
What's included
playbook/ ├── README.md ← The playbook └── templates/ ├── ceo/ │ ├── SOUL.md ← CEO identity, beliefs, anti-patterns │ ├── HEARTBEAT.md ← CEO heartbeat state machine (12 steps) │ ├── AGENTS.md ← CEO context, team roster, quality gate │ └── TOOLS.md ← API endpoints, email, file system ├── worker-agent/ │ ├── AGENTS.md ← Worker identity, DoD, communication protocol │ └── HEARTBEAT.md ← Worker heartbeat with self-check step └── company/ ├── PROJECT-INVENTORY.md ← Source of truth for what exists └── CONTRIBUTING.md ← Commit conventions, branch strategy
Copy the templates, fill in the [BRACKETS], and you have a working company.
The core principle
> Two layers of verification before anything reaches the Founder. > Layer 1: The agent checks their own work (worker HEARTBEAT self-check). > Layer 2: The CEO checks the agent's work (Quality Control Gate in CEO HEARTBEAT). > If either layer is missing, the Founder becomes the QA department.
What it prevents
| What goes wrong | What prevents it | |---|---| | CEO as postman | Quality Control Gate (HEARTBEAT Step 4) | | Agents don't test their work | Self-Check (worker HEARTBEAT Step 5) | | Same mistake 3 times | Feedback Loop (HEARTBEAT Step 9) | | Agents create busywork | "Idle is success" in SOUL + Pre-Creation Gate | | Identity drift | SOUL "What We Are" + Anti-Drift Check | | Duplicate work | PROJECT-INVENTORY.md + Pre-Creation Gate | | Founder finds all the bugs | Two-layer verification (agent + CEO) | | Stale context between heartbeats | Memory read + daily notes + PROJECT-INVENTORY |
Read the playbook first
The README explains why each template exists and what it prevents. Then copy the templates and customize them for your company. Every [BRACKET] is a value you need to provide.
Shared by Aron Prins