What a contract carries
- What the job does — the scope the operator commits to deliver.
- The price list — the kinds of deliverables the job produces and what each costs. The list is adopted from the job when the contract is drafted; while an agreement is in effect, it’s part of the terms and changes only by agreeing on a new version.
The lifecycle
One flow covers everything: the first agreement on a job, a change to a live agreement, a handover to a different operator, and re-engaging after an agreement ended. In every case, the operator drafts and sends a contract, and the client accepts or declines.Draft
Being written by the operator, usually with the agent’s help. Both parties can see the draft, while only the operator can edit and send it. A declined or withdrawn proposal also returns here, ready to be revised and re-sent. Gets here by: being drafted, or coming back from a declined or withdrawn proposal.Proposed
An offer on the table: sending it puts a review item in the client’s Inbox, and their decision — accepted or declined — lands back in the operator’s. The terms are frozen — the client decides on exactly what was sent, and nobody can change it under them. To change anything, the operator withdraws it, edits the draft, and sends it again; when they do, the new proposal shows what changed since the version the client last saw. Counter-offers aren’t made by editing — they happen in the job’s conversation, and the operator revises. A job can have several proposals out at once — for example, terms sent to two candidate operators. The first acceptance wins; the others are withdrawn automatically, with a note to each. Gets here by: the operator sending it.Active
The agreement the job runs under, numbered for its place in the job’s history — Agreement v1, v2, v3. Accepting did three things at once: the operator took the job, any previous agreement was superseded (the job switches over with no gap), and the job’s other open proposals were withdrawn. The terms are now fixed for both sides. Changing them means the operator proposes a new version from the current contract, and the job keeps running on the current terms until the client accepts. Changes apply going forward — results already delivered keep the price they were delivered under. Gets here by: the client accepting the proposal.Ended
The relationship is over — either because one side ended it, or because a newer agreement superseded it. Ending is unilateral: no approval from the other side, no notice period. Everything the job produced under this agreement — deliverables, statements, the conversation — stays readable. An agreement ending (other than by being superseded) clears the job’s operator, so the job stops running. It isn’t gone: take it over yourself, assign someone from your organization, or agree with an operator again — the same flow as the first time. Gets here by: either side ending it, or a newer agreement being accepted in its place. Nothing more happens to an ended contract.No surprises
The flow is built so neither side is ever bound to something they haven’t seen:- Nothing runs until someone has explicitly taken the job — accepted its terms, or said “I’ll operate this job.”
- The side reviewing a proposal decides on exactly what was sent — proposals can’t change once sent.
- A live job never changes terms silently: it runs on the current agreement until the new one is accepted.
- Ending is always available to both sides, and everything already produced stays on the record.