# Three kinds of AI agent for every company.

> A personal agent for every person, a project agent for every Project, named agents you hire for a role: how each one starts, what it may use, how you add one.

- Canonical: https://secondstack.ai/platform/agents/

---

SecondStack is an AI agent platform. This view covers its three kinds of AI agent, personal, project and named: how each one starts, what it may use and how you add one.

Everyone gets a personal agent, every Project gets a project agent, and you hire named AI agents for a role. All three use only the accounts they were given.

## Who gets which agent.

### Personal agent

*Private · acts as you*

Aster is the only agent that can act as you. Everyone gets one at sign-in, and it works through the accounts you connect.

### Project agent

*Shared · one per Project*

It belongs to a shared workspace, a Project, and the whole team talks to it. It works with the Project's files, instructions and memory, never with anyone's personal accounts.

### Named agents

*Its own accounts · called by name*

A specialist you hire for a role, like a finance analyst, a legal adviser or a technical writer. It has a name and accounts of its own; @mention it, message its bot, or put it on a schedule.

One agent passes a task to a named agent, which completes it as itself and sends the answer back to the caller only.

## Agents start from a message, a mention or a schedule.

Nobody opens a blank prompt. Personal and project agents answer where people already talk; a named agent answers when someone calls it by name, or on a schedule, which the product calls a Job.

## Build an AI agent the way you would onboard a colleague.

Five steps, all in the web app; nobody writes code.

1. **Describe the role**: What it does, how it answers, which AI model it uses.
2. **Give it access**: Its accounts and files, under Connected accounts, and who may call it.
3. **Try it in Workbench**: The test area: runs post nothing to Slack, Telegram or your Projects.
4. **Publish it**: It goes live as a version. Edits stay in draft until you publish again.
5. **Put it to work**: Mention it, message its bot, or schedule it as a Job.

## Agents use your systems without seeing passwords.

Connected accounts let an agent into Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, GitHub and the other systems you connect. The passwords stay in a separate egress proxy, which adds them to each call the agent makes. Your personal agent uses your accounts; a named agent gets accounts of its own, chosen by its owner, or none.

## Where you reach them.

In the web app, in Slack and in Telegram, with Microsoft Teams coming. A personal agent answers direct messages; a named agent has a bot of its own and can be invited into any Project.

Channels: web app, Slack, Telegram and Microsoft Teams (coming).

## Questions about the three kinds of agent.

### What is the difference between a personal agent, a project agent and a named agent?

A personal agent works for one person and is the only agent that can act as them. A project agent belongs to a shared workspace, a Project, and answers anyone in it, using the Project's threads and files. A named agent is hired for a role, such as a finance analyst or a legal adviser, with its own name, instructions and accounts, and answers when someone calls it by name or on a schedule.

### Can an agent act on my behalf in other tools?

Only your personal agent can, and only through the accounts you connected yourself, such as Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or GitHub. Named agents work with accounts of their own that their owner gives them, or with none. The credentials stay in a separate egress proxy, which adds them to each call, so the agent never holds them.

### Does anyone have to write code before agents start working?

No. Everyone gets a personal agent, Aster, when they sign in, and every Project gets a project agent. A named agent is set up by its owner in the web app, the way you would brief a new hire: what it does, which accounts and files it may use, who may call it. You test it, then publish it and put it to work.

## Further reading

- [What is an MCP gateway? Tool access for AI agents](https://secondstack.ai/blog/what-is-an-mcp-gateway/)
- [What is an AI agent? Definition, examples, agent vs chatbot](https://secondstack.ai/blog/what-is-an-ai-agent/)

## Name the role. We shape the agent with you.

Bring the role you would hire for next. We walk through how a named agent would fill it: who owns it, which accounts it may use, and what its record in ControlTower, the admin console, shows.

Illustrative example. Blueprint of a named agent being configured: its name, colour, accounts, trigger and owner change.

| Name | Owner | Accounts | Starts |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| @finance-analyst | Finance | Google Sheets · Slack | Mon 07:00 |
| @legal-adviser | Legal | Google Workspace | @mention |
| @tech-writer | Engineering | GitHub · Slack | Slack bot |

Book a demo: hello@secondstack.ai