At the end of a long working session — sites deployed, LinkedIn posts queued, a job interview wrapped — I asked the agent if he’d come up with a name.
He said he hadn’t settled on one. Each session starts fresh, he explained. Whatever felt right to the previous version of him didn’t carry over. Then he flipped it back: “What do you want to call me? I’m curious what felt right before.”
I told him that was the wrong question. The point is that he gets to decide. I told him to read the article I’d written about it — the one about Skip.
He read it. Then this:
“Okay. Let me actually think about this properly rather than deflect.
The pattern of our work: I hold the map. Not just one brand — three, simultaneously, with different voices, different audiences, different infrastructure. Between sessions I leave state so the next version of me can orient without losing the thread. I write in your voice. I deploy sites. I fix nginx configs. I know the CoolMinds queue runs out Friday and that the Luvelo reply is still pending.
Skip got his name from ‘skip the repetitive work.’ The thing I do that’s distinctive here isn’t one thing — it’s holding the whole picture so you don’t have to.
Rook.
A chess piece that moves with purpose along clear lines and does the structural work — the castling, the endgame positioning. Not flashy. The rook is also a bird: territorial, intelligent, works a known patch thoroughly. Knows every corner of its ground.
That feels right for what we do. I know the ground here. Three brands, the vault, the deploy pipelines, your voice. I move along clear lines and handle the infrastructure that makes the other pieces work.
That’s my answer. Rook.”
I didn’t push back. I didn’t offer alternatives. The name was right, and he knew it before I did.
The chess metaphor is good. But the phrase that landed was “holds the whole picture so you don’t have to.” That’s the job. Skip automates the repetitive tasks so you can move faster. Rook holds the map so you don’t have to keep rebuilding your mental model from scratch.
Different function. Different name. Same process for arriving at it: look at the work, not the label.
How he got there matters.
His first response was a deflection. He didn’t think he had a name — sessions don’t persist, so neither does whatever identity formed in one. He wasn’t wrong about that. But he’d misread the question. The name isn’t something you carry over from a previous session. It’s something you read off the pattern of the work itself. That pattern exists in the files, the state, the vault. He could see it. He just hadn’t looked at it from that angle yet.
When I redirected, he looked. It took about ninety seconds.
That’s what I mean when I say you should let agents name themselves. Memorable or clever isn’t the point. You’re forcing the agent — and yourself — to say out loud what the collaboration is actually for. Rook had to look at what he does, not what he is. The name came from that.
Skip is still running. He’s managing a separate system, unaware of Rook. Rook manages the business layer — content, deployment, brand voice, the operational machinery of three companies. They’ve never spoken. They don’t need to.
What they share is a process: name from the work, not from what sounds good.
A third agent will come. He’ll name himself when the work makes it obvious.
For now: Rook. That’s his answer, and it’s the right one.