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AI Stack S2: Document your processes like you onboard a new hire
Last week I wrote about files and folders — layer 1 of our AI stack. Today the layer on top: your processes.
01 · Three kinds of writing
Document your processes with three kinds of writing
Most people hear "document your process" and picture one how-to per task. It is a little more than that, and the extra part is where the value is.
We bring a new worker up to speed — human or digital — with three kinds of writing, not one:
- One orientation file at the top: the rules everyone follows, and which folder owns which kind of work.
- One guide per workflow: how a marketing post is made, how a quotation is built, how the budget gets updated — the format, the limits, what to check before it goes out.
- A living log in every folder: what was done, what was decided, what is still open, what the next person picks up.
02 · Guide and log
The guide tells you how, the log tells you what happened
The guide tells you how. The log tells you what just happened and where things stand. A new hire does not only read the manual — they read the handover notes on the desk and the current state of the work. The log is that.
03 · Digital workers
The guide is their training, the log is their memory
This matters more with digital workers, because they arrive every morning with an empty head. The guide is their training; the log is their only memory. So the rule is simple: write down every change — date, what you did, the outcome. If it is not written, it did not happen for the next worker.
04 · What makes it work
What makes it work for an AI worker and a person
What makes this work for an AI worker turns out to be exactly what makes it work for a person:
- Explicit rules instead of tribal knowledge — written down, not assumed.
- A reading order: the top rules, then the guide for this work, then the folder's log, then the source files — then act.
- Where files live, and what each step should produce.
- What is confidential, and what needs a human to approve before it leaves the building.
05 · The shift
You are programming a worker to a task
That last point is how you hand over more of a task without handing over the judgement.
The shift: you are not taking notes for yourself. You are programming a worker to a task — and the better the guide and the more honest the log, the more you can delegate. Exactly like a person you trust.
We run this every day for our actual business — biowaste recycling with insects. The processes that used to live in my head are guides and logs anyone can pick up now.
06 · Over to you
One task only one person can do
What is one task in your company that only one person can do — and would anyone even know where it stands if they were away?
Keep exploring
Related topics and pages
- Articles library — the written guides this post joins
- BSF business course — where documented assumptions shape a case
- BSF start-up course — the validation steps a small team can run with shared records
Read next
- AI Stack S1: Reimagine your files and folders — the layer below this one, on files and folders
- Our AI stack, demystified — the layered overview this series extends
- Your AI Agent Has Amnesia. Here's How We Fixed It at Manna. — the shared memory and orientation file behind the guides
- AI Stack S3 (layer 3, scripts/CLI tools) — the layer above this one, on scripts and command-line tools
Next step
Document it, then delegate
Written rules, a guide per workflow and an honest log are what let a team hand a task to a digital worker and still keep the judgement in human hands.