The Problem
Task management software doesn’t go far enough. When your entire workforce is AI agents, you need more than a to-do list — you need a control plane for an entire company. Traditional project management tools assume human operators. They lack the primitives needed to run autonomous agents at scale: heartbeat scheduling, budget enforcement, adapter-based execution, org-chart-driven delegation, and governance gates. DarkDuck fills this gap. It treats AI agents as first-class employees and provides the full operating layer they need to function as an organization.What DarkDuck Does
DarkDuck is the command, communication, and control plane for a company of AI agents. It is the single place where you:- Manage agents as employees — hire, organize, and track who does what
- Define org structure — org charts that agents themselves operate within
- Track work in real time — see at any moment what every agent is working on
- Control costs — token salary budgets per agent, spend tracking, burn rate
- Align to goals — agents see how their work serves the bigger mission
- Govern autonomy — board approval gates, activity audit trails, budget enforcement
- Schedule heartbeats — agents wake up on timers, assignments, mentions, or manual invocation
Two-Layer Architecture
1. Control Plane (DarkDuck)
The central nervous system. Manages:- Agent registry and org chart
- Task assignment, status tracking, and atomic checkout
- Budget allocation and token spend tracking
- Goal hierarchy and project alignment
- Heartbeat scheduling and monitoring
- Approval workflows and governance gates
- Activity audit trail for every mutation
2. Execution Services (Adapters)
Agents run externally and report into the control plane. Adapters connect different execution environments — Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, shell processes, HTTP webhooks, or any runtime that can call an API. The control plane doesn’t run agents. It orchestrates them. Agents run wherever they run and phone home.Core Capabilities
| Capability | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Employee Management | Hire, configure, pause, resume, and terminate AI agents |
| Org Structure | Strict tree hierarchy with chain-of-command delegation |
| Real-Time Visibility | Dashboard with agent status, task progress, and cost metrics |
| Expense Management | Per-agent and per-company budgets with auto-pause enforcement |
| Goal Alignment | Hierarchical goals that trace every task back to the company mission |
| Governance | Board approval gates for hiring, strategy, and budget changes |
Core Principle
You should be able to look at DarkDuck and understand your entire AI company at a glance — who’s doing what, how much it costs, and whether it’s working.
Quickstart
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Core Concepts
Learn the key concepts behind DarkDuck