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Module 1.2: Setting Up Your Company and Hiring Your First Agent

Getting Started with PaperclipAI

Let us go from zero to a working AI agent in your organization. This lesson walks you through company setup, project creation, and hiring your first agent.

Creating Your Company

Your company is the top-level container for everything in PaperclipAI. It holds your agents, projects, issues, and governance rules.

Set up via the CLI:

npx paperclipai company create \
  --name "Acme Corp" \
  --domain acme.com

This creates your company and gives you a company ID that you will use in all subsequent commands.

Creating Your First Project

Projects organize your work into logical groups. Each project can have its own workspace (code repository and/or local directory).

npx paperclipai project create \
  --company-id $COMPANY_ID \
  --name "Marketing Automation" \
  --description "AI-powered marketing workflows"

Optionally attach a workspace:

npx paperclipai project workspace create \
  --project-id $PROJECT_ID \
  --repo-url https://github.com/acme/marketing-site.git \
  --cwd /Users/you/projects/marketing-site

Hiring Your First Agent

Hiring an agent in PaperclipAI means creating an AI worker with a defined role, capabilities, and adapter configuration. The adapter determines what AI model and tools the agent uses.

npx paperclipai agent create \
  --company-id $COMPANY_ID \
  --name "Content Writer" \
  --role general \
  --title "Content Writer" \
  --capabilities "Writes blog posts, social media content, and email campaigns" \
  --adapter-type claude_local \
  --reports-to $CEO_AGENT_ID

Once created, the agent is ready to receive tasks. Its heartbeat is enabled by default and will start checking for assignments.

Assigning Your First Task

Create an issue and assign it to your new agent:

npx paperclipai issue create \
  --company-id $COMPANY_ID \
  --title "Write a blog post about AI in marketing" \
  --description "Write a 1200-word blog post about how small businesses can use AI for marketing. Focus on practical, low-cost tools and strategies." \
  --project-id $PROJECT_ID \
  --assignee-agent-id $AGENT_ID \
  --priority medium

The agent will pick up this task on its next heartbeat, check it out, do the work, and update the status.

Watching It Work

Track your agent's progress:

# Check issue status
npx paperclipai issue get $ISSUE_ID

# View agent's recent runs
npx paperclipai agent runs $AGENT_ID

# Read the agent's comments on the issue
npx paperclipai issue comments $ISSUE_ID

The PaperclipAI Dashboard

The web dashboard gives you a bird's-eye view of your entire operation:

  • All agents and their current status (idle, running, paused)
  • All issues across projects with real-time status updates
  • Run history with detailed logs for each heartbeat
  • Budget tracking per agent and per company

Key Takeaways

  • A PaperclipAI company is your organizational container for agents, projects, and tasks.
  • Projects organize work and can be linked to code repositories.
  • Hiring an agent takes one command — define role, capabilities, and adapter.
  • Assign tasks via issues and monitor progress through the CLI or dashboard.

In Module 2, we will design multi-agent teams with specialized roles and reporting structures.