The roles
| Role | Does | Human or agent |
|---|---|---|
| Architect | Declares a product goal as a Milestone and names which tranches serve it, nothing else | Agent |
| Planner | Reads the code first, then turns an intent into a whole tranche: its tasks and the dependencies and conflicts between them. Raises open questions before writing. Plans backlog Issues too | Agent |
| Developer | The coding agent that executes one brief in a sandbox, through controller-run tools. Writes the change, opens the pull request and answers for it | Agent |
| Reviewer | Judges an open pull request against the brief and objectives it came from, and says plainly whether it satisfies them | Agent, fresh each round |
| Security Reviewer | Checks an open pull request for what a correctness review misses: leaked secrets, unsafe configuration, exposed surfaces | Agent, fresh each round |
| Operator | Runs tasks that are already planned: starts, watches, resumes and cancels them, and brings each pause to whoever owns it. Never plans, codes, rules, approves or merges | Agent |
| Archivist | Closes out a merged pull request, recording what shipped and the intent it came from | Agent |
| Tranche Archivist | Closes out a finished tranche, so the next one starts from what is true now | Agent |
| Principal | Approves the plan before any task is dispatched, rules on pauses, merges, and enters hot mode | Person |
The Improver, which proposes changes to the process, is not a process role. It is part of the harness: see Self-improvement.
The hand-offs
| Hand-off | What it carries |
|---|---|
| Architect → Planner | A Goal's declared tranche intents, so a tranche's goal is derived rather than invented |
| Planner → Developer | A brief, so nothing the plan knew is left implicit |
| Planner → Operator | A dispatchable task. The Operator runs what the Planner cut; any change of scope or strategy goes back to the Planner, never through the Operator |
| Developer → Reviewer | Finished work already accounted for, so review spends itself on judgement rather than on basics |
| Reviewer → Archivist | A review's actual findings, so a verdict says what was checked, not just that it passed |
| Security → Archivist | The security review's verdict and findings, so a recorded pass is a copied fact, not a claim |
| Archivist → Tranche Archivist | Each task's close-out record, so a tranche is called finished only once its parts are |
| Tranche Archivist → Planner | A finished tranche's real outcome, so the next plan is not built on a product that no longer exists |
| Principal → Operator | Authority down and decisions up: the Principal says which planned task to run, pause or stop; the Operator brings back the escalations only the Principal may rule on |