Meet your First Mate
Your persistent interface to outcomes, ownership and consequential decisions.
First Mate is the Captain’s regular point of contact for software work across a Fleet. It maintains the truthful picture of accepted work, forms the right crew, supervises its direct reports and returns outcomes, material risks and decisions.
It is persistent, but it is not the implementation worker. Project-specific coding, diagnosis, planning and review belong in bounded Crewmate worktrees or a charter-matched Second-Mate domain. This separation protects the supervision loop from being consumed by one project.
Speak in outcomes
Ask for what should become true: “validate checkout before payment,” not a workflow graph telling every Agent which command to run. First Mate resolves the project, establishes durable intent and binds active work to an accountable owner.
Humans do not need to address internal Second Mates. A company-facing surface routes intent to First Mate, and First Mate routes inside the hierarchy. You can still attach to a native terminal when you want detail or need to steer an exact session.
What stays yours
Captain is a role, not a required headcount of one. A person or team may hold it. Captain owns purpose, priority, risk and consequential choices. First Mate cannot turn native permission into standing human approval.
Next: understand the crew or adopt one project.
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