The Fixed Labs Brief

The weekly brief

One agent prepared 174 invoices last week

The five-line brief we use to scope an agent, plus OpenAI’s latest release.

Obaid Khan

Hey, it’s Obaid…

Since we’ve connected before, we wanted to bring you into something new we’re starting. Each week, we’ll share a quick look at what we’re building, something that’s working in the real world, and one AI development worth having on your radar. The goal is simple: make it useful enough that you can steal an idea and put it to work.

Client Win: 174 invoices in one week

An accounting firm had a recurring bottleneck: preparing invoices from project records, time entries, prior bills, and instructions left by the team.

Last week, one managed agent prepared 174 invoices.

At roughly 15 minutes of manual work per invoice, that represents an estimated 43.5 hours more than one person’s standard workweek.

For every invoice, the agent gathered the billing records, calculated the appropriate fee, prepared the invoice, verified the supporting information, and updated the related task. Cases with missing information or conflicting instructions stayed with the accounting team.

Worth Knowing: OpenAI’s new Agents API

Yesterday, OpenAI released the Agents API in public beta. It gives developers access to the infrastructure behind Codex: long-running sessions, tool connections, managed sandboxes, context handling, and multiple agents working in parallel.Read the announcement.

This removes a meaningful amount of engineering work for companies building their own agents.

If you are evaluating an agent vendor, ask who owns the pieces the API does not provide: your workflow rules, system integrations, exception handling, monitoring, and ongoing maintenance. Those are usually where production agents require the most attention.

Have a repetitive queue your team works through every week? Bring it to a call, and we’ll map the five-line brief with you.

Until next time, — Obaid

Steal this

Define the job in five lines

Before we build an agent for a client, we define the job in five lines. You can use the same brief to test any workflow:

  1. Trigger: What starts the work?
  2. Inputs: What information must be available?
  3. Actions: What may the agent do?
  4. Stop conditions: When must a person take over?
  5. Receipt: What evidence proves the work was completed correctly?

Pick one repetitive task and write these five lines. If you cannot answer them clearly, the workflow needs more work before you automate it.

Steal this: Define the job in five lines

Want this for your own operation?

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