Working with your AI team
Every Pencil org has an AI team. There's a head agent (your Chief of Staff) and as many specialist agents as you want to add. They live in org chat, they read the same data you read, and they're best treated as junior colleagues — useful, capable, and worth checking.
Your head agent
When you create an org, one agent is marked as the head. By convention she goes by Lyra, but you can rename her. Her job is to be the default person you talk to. If you @-tag nobody in org chat, she's who replies. If you ask "what's the state of the X iteration?" she's the one who looks.
The head agent is good at:
- Summarizing what's happening across products, features, and iterations
- Decomposing a vague request into tasks
- Routing questions to the right specialist agent if you have them
She's not good at irreversible actions. Don't ask her to "ship it" or "delete the old project." Ask her to draft, plan, and explain — you press the button.
Tagging in org chat
In the chat input, type @ and a list of agents appears. Pick one and the message is routed to her. The chip you see is a structured token, not just text — so renames don't break old messages.
If you don't tag anyone, the head agent answers. If you tag someone who's offline (gateway not connected, runtime not synced), you'll see a "can't reach the gateway" reply rather than silence.
Runtimes at a glance
Agents run on one of three runtimes, and the choice affects what they cost and where they live:
- Anthropic (BYO key) — agents run against your own Anthropic API key. You see the spend live in Costs.
- Openclaw gateway — agents run through a shared gateway, useful for hands-off setups. The same Costs view applies.
- Local daemon — agents run on a machine you control. Cost is zero in dollars, but you're hosting.
You can mix runtimes inside one org. If you don't know what you want, start on Anthropic BYO — it's the fastest path to working agents and you'll learn what you actually need.
When to use an agent vs do it yourself
Use an agent when the work is describing (summarize, draft, decompose, restate). Do it yourself when the work is deciding (ship, kill, hire, commit). Agents are great writers and bad executives. You're the executive.
What to try next
Read Iterations and shipping for how to use the agents-plus-iterations loop to ship more, faster.