Guides
AI Squads
The team you haven't hired yet — five pre-wired AI departments that share one company Brain and act inside approval boundaries.
Squads are HiveBase's AI departments — the team you haven't hired yet. Where a single task does one unit of work, a squad owns an entire function: watching its corner of the company, doing routine work, cascading real work into tasks, and escalating only the calls that need a human.
Every squad reads and writes the same Brain, so departments compound instead of operating as five disconnected agents. You steer; they run the continuous loop.
- 01Function signalsSlack · CRM · meetings · PRs
- 02Squad watchesDomain-tuned loop
- 03Routine workDraft · prep · organize
- 04Or cascade a taskNeeds doing
- 05Or escalate to youJudgment with context
- 01
Function signals
Slack · CRM · meetings · PRs
- 02
Squad watches
Domain-tuned loop
- 03
Routine work
Draft · prep · organize
- 04
Or cascade a task
Needs doing
- 05
Or escalate to you
Judgment with context
How a squad works
Each squad is domain-tuned but runs the same continuous loop. It never starts from a blank prompt — every step draws on the Brain.
Watch
The squad monitors signals in its lane — accounts, threads, PRs, market moves, content moments — without you routing work to it.
Do the routine work
Drafting, prepping, organizing, summarizing. No task created, no decision asked when the work is reversible and in-bounds.
Cascade into tasks
When something needs doing, the squad opens a task with context attached so it lands on the same board as everything else.
Escalate the few real decisions
Ambiguous, irreversible, or high-blast-radius calls surface with evidence so you decide fast — not re-brief from scratch.
Grounded in the Brain
A squad is not a chatbot you re-brief each session. It already knows the account, the decision history, and the people involved because it reads the same Brain as every other surface.
The five squads
Public product surfaces map to five departments. Product marketing pages go deep on each; this guide is the operator overview.
| Squad | Public surface | Owns | Watches | Escalates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering | /squads/engineering | Coding-agent supervision, PR judgment, production signals | Repos, PRs, agent runs, incidents | Merge risk, architecture calls, outages |
| Marketing | /squads/marketing | On-voice content and channel execution | Company activity, pillars, sources | Unsourced claims, off-pillar publish |
| Accounts | /squads/accounts | Relationship health and renewals | CRM, email, meetings, support, usage | Churn risk, human-required replies |
| Product | /squads/product | Capability model and priority evidence | Feedback, usage, strategy pressure | Roadmap / scope decisions |
| Strategy | /squads/strategy | Competitive and market pressure-testing | Competitors, thesis, market structure | Thesis breaks, cross-squad implications |
Functions, not features
A squad is sized to a function a person would otherwise own. The point is not more dashboards — it is one fewer hat for you to wear, with human judgment still on the one-way doors.
Honest hybrid: where you still sit
Squads are senior leverage, not a claim that zero humans ever matter. They handle persistent monitoring, synthesis, preparation, and reversible execution. Relationships, priorities, strategy, security-sensitive moves, and other one-way doors stay yours — or stay approval-gated until a category has earned autonomy.
That hybrid is intentional. You get the team you haven't hired yet without pretending judgment is free.
Single task vs. squad
| A single task | A squad | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | One thing | A whole function |
| Trigger | You (or another agent) start it | It watches its own signals |
| Duration | Runs to done | Runs continuously |
| Output | Finished work + receipt | Routine work + cascaded tasks + escalations |
| Your role | Review the result | Handle exceptions |
What you control
Squads share the same autonomy model as the rest of HiveBase: reads free, outbound and high-impact holds, receipts on action, undo where reversible. See Trust & safety and action receipts.
- Squads start supervised — autonomy is earned per action category, not blanket-trusted.
- Reversible work can auto-run with a visible receipt and undo; one-way doors stay held.
- Every escalation arrives with sources and context, not a bare alert.
- Conflicts in the Brain are held for review, never auto-resolved.
FAQ
Do I manage a squad like a team board?
No. You are the exception handler, not the operator of a second backlog. The squad watches, does routine work, and surfaces only what needs you.
Will a squad act without asking?
Only inside categories you allow. Reversible categories can earn receipt-backed autonomy; consequential categories can remain approval-only.
How is this different from an agent builder?
Builders give you parts to assemble. Squads ship defined department roles, shared company context, handoffs, approval boundaries, receipts, and undo — the operating model, not a kit.
How do squads relate to tasks?
When a squad finds work that needs doing, it cascades a normal task. Tasks are the unit of execution; the squad is what decides which ones are worth opening.
Is the PM surface a sixth squad?
No. Autonomous PM / board hygiene is part of the Task System, not a department squad. See the product surface at /pm.