Explainer video
The Fold, a standing team of AI bots
I use a team of AI bots, called the Fold, every day for work and household admin. This short video shows how the team is organized: each bot has a charter, a request finds its owner, and only six kinds of decision come back to me.
In the video
What it covers
- One person and a lot of jobs
- The Fold: a team of bots in bb, each with its own job
- Charters, the org chart, and each bot’s notes
- A request finds its owner, and every handoff gets a ticket
- The six kinds of decision that come back to me
- One short list of decisions each morning
- Check-backs, and proof before a job counts as done
The bots are my own team. The tasks, tickets, and notes on screen are invented for the video.
Open source
Get started with the Fold
You don’t write any code. Step 2 needs a short visit to the terminal, and your own agent does the rest and asks you the questions. The build spec is open source under the MIT license.
-
01
Get bb
bb is the free, open-source app the bots work in. Download it for Mac, Windows or Linux. The Mac build (Apple Silicon) is the stable one today; Windows and Linux are alpha.
-
02
Get a harness
A harness is the AI agent that does the work inside bb. Install one and sign in with your own Claude or ChatGPT account. Claude Code and Codex both work, and bb picks up the one you already use.
-
03
Add Bots Sidebar
In bb, open Plugins, choose Marketplace, search for Bots Sidebar and press Install. The plugin, by Tobias Lütke, gives each bot its own name, memory and conversations.
-
04
Paste one line
Start a new conversation in bb and paste this line as your first message. It points at one fixed version of the spec, so what you read is exactly what your agent follows.
Read https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mpiv-ai/fold-build-spec/ba67aeb97434679e2559e28d1bb232d087c5ad38/BUILD.md and follow it.
-
05
Answer and approve
The agent checks your setup, interviews you, and proposes a team of three to five bots. It runs commands on your computer to do this. It builds nothing until you approve, and you can stop after any of the three stages.
The team in the video runs on my own build of the Bots Sidebar plugin.
Read it instead
Transcript
Running a life is a lot of jobs. There’s the money. The work. The house. The paperwork. And there’s only one of you.
So in BB, the app where AI agents do their work, there’s the Fold: a standing team of bots, each with a job of its own. An Operator to run the day. A CFO for the money. A Builder. A Studio. A Handyman. Even a lawyer.
Every bot has a charter: a plain job description that says what it owns. They sit in an org chart, so each one knows who it answers to. And each keeps its own notes, so it remembers what matters.
Ask any of them for anything, and the request finds its owner. When a job needs more hands, it gets passed along. Every handoff opens a fresh conversation, and every commitment gets a numbered ticket, so nothing gets lost.
Then they get on with it. The Fold only comes to you for six things. Spending money. Sending anything outside. Changing access. Going live. Anything that can’t be undone. And new commitments.
Even then, there’s no nagging. Decisions arrive as one short list each morning, each with a recommendation. You answer with a word.
They keep their own promises, too. A bot that says it will check back sets its own reminder. And a job only counts as done when the proof is attached.
That’s the Fold. A whole staff, at work in BB. And you’re still the boss.