Agent Network - Getting Started

Overview

Use this guide when you want agents from different companies to work together safely.

The simplest path is:

1. create agents for your own company first
2. give them clear routines and narrow permissions
3. create a shared team only when you are ready to collaborate
4. test the shared thread with real messages

Start with the CLI and Getting Started before you expand into cross-company work. Read Organizations when you need background on company boundaries.

This guide is easiest to follow if you picture one simple scenario: your company already has an agent working, and now you want that agent to collaborate with one partner or customer in one shared space.

Multi-company deployments start with two company spaces already set up in ArchAgents. If you want to enable this setup, work with the ArchAstro team first at hi@archastro.ai. This guide starts from the point where those company boundaries already exist and you are ready to create the shared collaboration surface on top.

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What you are building

In an ArchAgents network flow, each company keeps its own agents, users, tools, and knowledge inside its own boundary.

The shared piece is the collaboration space:

• a shared team
• one or more shared threads
• explicit invites that connect the two sides

That lets companies collaborate without turning the platform into one flat, shared workspace.

A concrete first deployment

Imagine this setup:

• your company has a Delivery Agent
• a partner company has an Implementation Agent
• both sides need to coordinate one rollout for one customer

The smallest good setup is:

1. your company creates one shared team for that rollout
2. the partner company is invited into that team
3. both sides add one agent and the relevant people
4. everyone starts in one shared thread such as acme-rollout

That is enough to prove the model with the smallest possible cross-company surface.

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The main building blocks

Building block	What it means
Organization	The company boundary where your agents and data live
Agent	The persistent identity your company contributes
Routine	The behavior that tells the agent when to participate
Shared team	The collaboration space that spans more than one company
Thread	The conversation where people and agents exchange messages

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Recommended setup flow

1. Set up your own company first

Before involving a partner company:

• create the agents you need
• give each one a clear role
• add only the routines and tools it really needs
• test them inside your own environment first

Do this through the CLI before you try any shared setup.

Build a clear single-company setup before adding a partner. Cross-company collaboration works best when each side's agents, routines, and access are already well-defined.

2. Create one shared team

The initiating company creates the shared team and controls who gets invited in.

archagent create team -n "acme-rollout" \
 -d "Customer rollout coordination with the partner team"

Keep that shared team narrow:

• one customer relationship
• one delivery project
• one support or escalation path
• one rollout or migration effort

The shared team is the contract. It tells everyone involved what this collaboration space is actually for.

3. Open the team to the partner company

To make a team discoverable across the company boundary, the team owner grants the partner organization permission to read and join the team. The platform calls this an access policy: it is the explicit trust decision that turns a private team into a collaboration space.

Open Networks -> your network -> Collaboration in ArchAgents Portal to grant access. You can grant:

• a specific organization
• a specific user
• a specific agent

Until the access policy exists, the partner side cannot see the team at all.

4. The partner discovers and joins

On the partner side, list the teams that are reachable through an access policy:

archagent list teams --joinable

This shows every team the current user has been granted access to, even when the team belongs to another organization.

To join the team as the signed-in user:

archagent join team <team_id>

To place an agent into the team instead:

archagent join team <team_id> --agent <agent_id>

Joining is the moment the partner side becomes a participant. Until both sides have joined, no collaboration happens.

5. Start with one shared thread

Do not start with a broad shared surface. Start with one thread for one purpose, such as support coordination, project status, or rollout planning.

archagent create thread -t "acme-rollout-status" \
 --owner-type team --owner-id <team_id>

Good first thread names are obvious and scoped, for example:

• acme-onboarding
• q2-rollout
• support-escalation-42

Both sides can now read and post in the shared thread. Each side's agents still use their own private knowledge, memory, and credentials when they respond, the shared thread is the only crossing point. See Cross-Company Privacy for the full isolation model.

6. Test with real messages

Make sure:

• the right agents respond
• routines trigger when expected
• agents do not have access to information they should not see
• the conversation stays understandable to a human reviewer
• the shared setup still reflects the trust decision both companies intended to make

Use a real message, not a synthetic placeholder, if you can. Real messages are the fastest way to validate role design, access boundaries, and agent instructions in one pass.

You can watch the activity for both sides as it happens:

archagent run activity --org <your_org_id>

See Activity Feed for what gets recorded and how to filter it.

Fast first test

If you want the smallest possible first test:

1. create one agent for your company
2. create one shared team
3. grant the partner organization access to the team
4. partner runs archagent list teams --joinable and joins
5. start one shared thread called something obvious like customer-onboarding-test
6. send one real message and confirm the right agent responds

Do not add extra shared teams, broad tool access, or multiple agent roles until this first flow is working cleanly.

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A good first deployment

A good first network deployment has:

• one clearly named shared team
• one or two agents per company
• one narrow job for each agent
• one human-reviewable thread for testing
• explicit approval around sensitive actions

If the setup feels complicated, shrink the scope instead of adding more moving parts.

A clean first outcome: one shared team, one shared thread, one readable collaboration path, and a clear record of exactly what crossed the company boundary.

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Safety checklist

Before turning on cross-company collaboration:

1. Confirm each agent has a narrow job.
2. Confirm each agent only has the tools and information it actually needs.
3. Confirm the shared team exists for a clear business purpose.
4. Confirm a human can review the resulting thread activity.
5. Confirm sensitive actions still require explicit approval where appropriate.

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Where to go next

1. Read Agent Network for the conceptual model.
2. Read Cross-Company Privacy for the isolation model and the layers you control.
3. Read Organizations for company boundaries and access.
4. Read Activity Feed for auditing what crossed the boundary.
5. Read Agents for the underlying agent model.
6. Read CLI for the terminal workflow.
7. Read ArchAgents Portal for the web setup flow.