Giving a worker its first assignment

What this is

An assignment is the unit of work in Korps. You give it to a worker or a manager, it becomes a task with a state, and it stays open until it is done or blocked. This page is about writing one well, because the assignment is where most of the quality comes from.

Who it helps

Anyone giving an AI worker work for the first time, and anyone whose results so far have been "fine but not what I meant".

The shape of a good assignment

A good assignment reads like a brief you would give a capable new hire on their first day. Five parts:

1. The objective. One sentence, in plain words. "Find every competitor that launched a pricing change this quarter."
2. The context. What the worker needs to know that it cannot find out: your product, your market, which sources you trust.
3. The boundaries. What it must not do. "Do not contact anyone. Do not sign up for trials."
4. What done looks like. The deliverable, its shape, and where it should land. "A one-page summary in the Research room, with a link for every claim."
5. Where to ask. The decisions you want to make yourself. "Ask me before spending money or sending anything external."

A worked example

A first assignment for a research worker, written the way it lands in Korps:

Objective. Give me a morning brief on our three named competitors every weekday.

Context. We sell scheduling software to dental practices. The competitors are named in the Research room. I care about pricing changes, new features, and hiring signals.

Boundaries. Public sources only. No sign-ups, no outreach, no purchases.

Done looks like. Five bullets or fewer, each with a link, posted to the Research room by 8 am. If nothing changed, say so in one line.

Ask me. If you find something that looks like a legal or security issue, stop and flag it rather than summarising it.

This is an illustrative example. The competitors, the room and the time are yours to change.

What happens after you send it

The worker plans its steps and starts. Its state is visible: working, waiting on something, blocked, or done. If it reaches a boundary you set, it stops and raises a Needs You item rather than guessing. When it finishes, the result lands where you said, and Activity records each source and system it touched.

If the assignment repeats, turn it into a routine: the same brief on a schedule, so the worker runs it without you sending it again.

Requirements and availability

• Available in Korps. Assignments, task states, Needs You and routines are built in.
• You need a worker with a runtime and a connected model. Hermes Agent comes bundled as the runtime; the model is on your own account.
• Anything the worker must reach, such as your inbox or CRM, needs a connection first. See integrations.
• The free account is open now; the app that hosts workers opens at launch.

Limitations and approval points

• A worker cannot read your mind. If the assignment does not say what done looks like, the worker will decide, and you may not agree.
• "Ask me" only works if you name the cases. Set the actions that always need approval, such as sending, paying or deleting, at the policy level rather than in every brief. See approvals.
• A first assignment should be low stakes. Learn how the worker behaves on a report before giving it your customer list.