# Agents and desks

> What an agent is made of, what it may use, and why it is a role and not a person.

Section: Agents
Address: https://scytian.com/docs/agents-and-desks
Updated: 2026-09-14

An agent is a **role**, not a person with a made up name. In your workspace the agents are called Finance, Back office, Operations, and so on, because that is how a company divides work, and because a role can be judged on the handful of calls it has to make right every day.

## What an agent is made of

**A description of the role.** What this desk is responsible for, in whose company, with what tone. Written once, readable and editable.

**Memory.** What it has learned about your company and had confirmed. See [Memory](/docs/memory).

**Norms and rules.** The platform norms that apply to every agent, and your rules for this desk. See [Norms and rules](/docs/norms-and-rules).

**Connections.** The systems this desk may reach, each with its own access. See [Connections and keys](/docs/connections-and-keys).

**Jobs.** The processes this desk runs. See [Jobs and plans](/docs/jobs-and-plans).

## Tools

Each job carries the set of tools it is allowed to use. A job that reads a mailbox and writes into accounting does not get a browser or a shell. The administrator sets a ceiling for the whole agent, and the agent cannot give itself back a tool that was taken away. It can only ask, and a person decides.

## How many desks

Start with one. Each desk is measured on its own jobs and has its own ROI report, so adding a second is a decision you make on numbers, not on a feeling.

## What an agent never does

It never invents an identity. A supplier, a customer or a project it cannot find is a stop, not a new record.

It never widens its own reach. Not a system, not a permission, not a library.

It never decides about a person. The facts are prepared; the decision goes to a manager.