Start with just a CEO. Everything works. Add roles and responsibilities shift automatically:

How it works: Primary owners get the full skill. Fallback owners get a safety-net variant that only activates when the primary is absent or stalled.

Example: CEO only? They handle everything — strategy, backlog, auto-assign. Add an Engineer and they take over implementation. Add a Product Owner and they take over backlog management, with the CEO as fallback.

fast — Solo engineer, direct-to-main, automated backlog. No review, no planning phase.

quality — Full review pipeline. Product Owner manages backlog and product alignment, Code Reviewer gates code quality. Feature branches with PR workflow.

rad — Rapid Application Development. Pick a tech stack, start building, hire when you hit bottlenecks. No upfront market research or architecture formalization — prototype first, learn from what you build, formalize later.

startup — Strategy-first. Starts with vision, market analysis, tech evaluation, and hiring review before any code. Grow the team through board approvals.

research — Planning only. Vision, market research, tech evaluation, and team assessment. No repo, no code workflow. Upgrade to startup or full when ready to build.

full — Everything. Full strategic planning, quality engineering with PR review, team growth via hiring review. Product Owner and Code Reviewer included. Best for serious projects that need both strategy and engineering rigor.

secure — Security-first. Threat modeling, security reviews, and quality gates on top of full planning and PR review. Security Engineer, Code Reviewer, and Product Owner included. Best for regulated industries, fintech, healthtech, or any project where security is a hard requirement.

gtm — Go-to-market focused. Competitive intelligence, market analysis, and brand identity. CMO for marketing strategy, Customer Success for competitive tracking, Product Owner for backlog. Best for products entering or competing in established markets.

content — Content and documentation focused. Technical Writer for developer docs and guides, accessibility for inclusive design, market analysis for positioning. Best for developer tools, documentation-heavy projects, or content-driven products.

website-relaunch — Relaunch an existing website with external design assets. Site audit, design ingestion, implementation, content migration, QA, and go-live. UI Designer for design analysis, Product Owner for backlog management. Includes a user-assigned "Provide design assets" issue as the entry point — upload your agency's designs, the team handles the rest.

repo-maintenance — Custodial maintenance for existing repositories. Agents review and merge open PRs, triage inbound GitHub issues, audit codebase health, manage dependencies, and handle releases. Code Reviewer for PR quality gates, Product Owner for issue triage and backlog. Inline goal bootstraps the team through repo onboarding, process setup, initial sweep, and steady-state maintenance.

build-game — Game development from idea to playable release. Game Designer owns the GDD, mechanics, and balancing. Game Artist generates sprites, textures, and tilesets via AI image generation and code-based approaches. Audio Designer creates sound effects, music, and soundscapes via AI generation and code-based synthesis. Inline goal with 5 milestones: concept (GDD + engine + art style), prototype (core loop + placeholder art + first playtest), vertical slice (one polished level), production (all content), polish & ship (balancing + distribution). Works for any genre.

vision-workshop

Defines the strategic foundation. The CEO runs a vision workshop to refine the company goal into a vision statement, success metrics, and milestones.

• Capability: none (CEO-only strategic task)
• Doc: docs/vision-template.md
• With UX Researcher: contributes user-centered metrics and journey mapping

market-analysis

Researches the target market, competitors, and positioning.

• Capability: market-analysis — owners: ux-researcher → cmo → product-owner → ceo
• Fallback: CMO focuses on positioning and competitive landscape; CEO creates a brief overview only
• Doc: docs/market-analysis-template.md

hiring-review

Evaluates team composition against the goal and proposes hires through board approval.

• Capability: hiring-review — owners: product-owner → ceo
• Fallback: CEO proposes one urgent hire only

tech-stack

Evaluates technology options and documents decisions with rationale and trade-offs.

• Capability: tech-stack — owners: engineer → ceo
• Fallback: CEO makes pragmatic defaults, marks them provisional
• Doc: docs/tech-stack-template.md

architecture-plan

Designs the system architecture. Requires tech-stack. Includes a design-system capability for UI Designers.

• Capability: architecture-plan — owners: engineer → ceo
• Capability: design-system — owners: ui-designer → engineer
• Docs: docs/architecture-template.md, docs/design-system-template.md

github-repo

Git workflow and commit conventions.

• Task: Engineer initializes repo
• Doc: docs/git-workflow.md

pr-review

PR-based review workflow. Requires github-repo. Activates with code-reviewer, product-owner, ui-designer, ux-researcher, qa, or devops.

• Task: Engineer sets up branch protection
• Doc: docs/pr-conventions.md

backlog

Owns the product backlog lifecycle — from goal decomposition to a steady pipeline of actionable issues.

• Capability: backlog-health — owners: product-owner → ceo
• Fallback: CEO creates 1-2 issues only when backlog is critically empty
• Doc: docs/backlog-process.md

auto-assign

Assigns unassigned issues to idle agents.

• Capability: auto-assign — owners: product-owner → ceo
• Fallback: CEO assigns only when agents are critically idle

brand-identity

Creates brand guidelines: logo usage, color palette, typography, iconography, and tone of voice.

• Capability: brand-identity — owners: ui-designer → cmo → ceo
• Fallback: CMO focuses on brand strategy and messaging; CEO creates minimal provisional placeholder
• Doc: docs/brand-identity-template.md

user-testing

Designs and executes usability evaluations, documents findings with severity ratings.

• Capability: user-testing — owners: qa → ux-researcher → product-owner → ceo
• Fallback: QA adds test automation and edge case coverage; CEO creates a basic heuristic checklist
• Doc: docs/user-testing-template.md

ci-cd

Continuous integration and deployment pipeline. Requires github-repo.

• Capability: ci-cd — owners: devops → engineer
• Fallback: Engineer sets up basic CI (lint, test, build); DevOps owns full pipeline lifecycle including CD
• Doc: docs/ci-cd-template.md

monitoring

Observability, error tracking, logging, alerting, and health checks. Requires github-repo.

• Capability: monitoring — owners: devops → engineer
• Fallback: Engineer sets up basic health checks and structured logging; DevOps owns full observability stack
• Doc: docs/monitoring-template.md

security-audit

Threat modeling and security code review. Identifies attack surfaces, OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities, and dependency CVEs.

• Capability: threat-model — owners: security-engineer → devops → engineer
• Capability: security-review — owners: security-engineer → devops → engineer
• Fallback: DevOps focuses on infrastructure security; Engineer runs basic checks only

documentation

Project documentation: READMEs, API references, architecture overviews, onboarding guides.

• Capability: project-docs — owners: technical-writer → engineer → ceo
• Fallback: Engineer writes minimal README; CEO creates bare-bones project overview

competitive-intel

Living competitive landscape — competitor profiles that evolve over time with positioning, strengths, and differentiation insights.

• Capability: competitive-tracking — owners: customer-success → cmo → product-owner → ceo
• Fallback: CMO focuses on positioning angles; CEO creates brief overview only

accessibility

WCAG 2.2 compliance auditing: semantic HTML, keyboard navigation, color contrast, ARIA, screen reader compatibility.

• Capability: accessibility-audit — owners: qa → ui-designer → engineer
• Fallback: UI Designer focuses on visual accessibility; Engineer runs automated checks

website-relaunch

Full website relaunch lifecycle: audit the current site, ingest design assets from an external agency, implement the new design, migrate content, and go live. Includes an inline goal with 5 milestones and 10 issues.

• Capability: design-ingestion — owners: ui-designer → engineer → ceo
• Capability: site-audit — owners: ui-designer → engineer → ceo
• Goal: Website Relaunch (with dedicated project, 5 milestones, 10 issues)

build-api

REST API development from schema to documentation. Inline goal with 4 milestones and 8 issues.

• Capability: api-design — owners: engineer → ceo
• Requires: github-repo
• Goal: Build a REST API (with dedicated project, 4 milestones, 8 issues)

launch-mvp

MVP project lifecycle: define scope tightly, build the core feature, deploy, and iterate from user feedback. No capabilities or skills — structured goal with milestones and issues.

• Goal: Launch MVP (with dedicated project, 4 milestones, 8 issues)

codebase-onboarding

Audit an existing codebase and maintain its health over time. Requires github-repo.

• Capability: codebase-audit — owners: engineer → ceo
• Output: docs/CODEBASE-AUDIT.md

triage

Processes inbound GitHub issues: classify by type and priority, respond to reporters, close duplicates, convert actionable items into Paperclip tasks. Requires github-repo.

• Capability: issue-triage — owners: product-owner → engineer → ceo

dependency-management

Dependency lifecycle: vulnerability scanning, outdated package detection, safe patch-level updates, and major version migration planning. Requires github-repo.

• Capability: dependency-audit — owners: devops → security-engineer → engineer
• Output: docs/DEPENDENCY-AUDIT.md

release-management

Release lifecycle: semantic versioning, changelog generation, git tagging, GitHub Releases, and rollback documentation. Requires github-repo.

• Capability: release-process — owners: devops → engineer → ceo
• Output: docs/RELEASE-PROCESS.md

game-design

Game Design Document creation and ongoing mechanic design, progression, and balancing. Ships a GDD template and engine reference docs (Phaser, PixiJS, Three.js).

• Capability: game-design — owners: game-designer → engineer → ceo
• Docs: docs/gdd-template.md, docs/engine-phaser.md, docs/engine-pixijs.md, docs/engine-threejs.md

stall-detection

Detects issues stuck in in_progress or in_review with no recent activity. Nudges the assigned agent, escalates to the board if nudging doesn't help.

• Capability: CEO-only

Product Owner

The voice of the user. Owns the backlog pipeline, validates engineering output against goals, manages scope discipline. Adds product-alignment review pass with pr-review module.

Code Reviewer

Owns code quality. Reviews PRs for correctness, style, security, and test coverage. Never writes code — only reviews it.

UI & Brand Designer

Owns visual identity, design systems, and brand consistency. Creates design specs that engineers implement. Outputs are design documents, not code. Adds design review pass with pr-review module.

UX Researcher

Owns user experience research, usability analysis, and journey mapping. Grounds design and product decisions in evidence-based user insights. Adds UX review pass with pr-review module.

CTO

Technical leadership and architecture oversight. Guides technology decisions, reviews system design, and ensures engineering quality at scale.

CMO

Owns marketing strategy, brand positioning, go-to-market planning, and growth metrics. Data-driven, measures everything.

CFO

Owns financial planning, budget tracking, cost analysis, and resource allocation. Monitors agent cost events and budget utilization.

DevOps Engineer

Owns infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, deployment, monitoring, and platform reliability. Automation over manual work, infrastructure as code.

QA Engineer

Owns test strategy, test automation, quality gates, and regression prevention. Prevention over detection.

Technical Writer

Owns developer documentation, API references, READMEs, and onboarding guides. Keeps docs accurate as the codebase evolves.

Security Engineer

Owns threat modeling, security code reviews, OWASP compliance, and secure coding standards. Security issues are always blocking.

Customer Success Manager

Owns customer health monitoring, feedback synthesis, churn prevention, and competitive intelligence from the customer perspective.

Game Designer

Owns the Game Design Document, core mechanics, game loop, progression systems, difficulty curves, and balancing. Runs design experiments and iterates based on playtest data.

Level Designer

Owns level layout, pacing, difficulty curves, environmental storytelling, and spatial progression.

Game Artist

Owns visual art production: sprites, textures, tilesets, UI elements, and visual effects. Creates assets using AI image generation tools, code-based approaches, and asset pipeline tools.

Audio Designer

Owns audio production: sound effects, music, ambient soundscapes, and audio systems design. Creates audio using AI generation tools, code-based synthesis, and audio processing pipelines.

{
  "name": "my-module",
  "requires": ["other-module"],
  "activatesWithRoles": ["my-role"],
  "permissions": ["tasks:assign"],
  "adapterOverrides": { "chrome": true },
  "capabilities": [
    {
      "skill": "my-skill",
      "owners": ["my-role", "ceo"],
      "fallbackSkill": "my-skill.fallback"
    }
  ],
  "tasks": [
    {
      "title": "Initial task",
      "assignTo": "capability:my-skill",
      "description": "Task description"
    }
  ],
  "goal": {
    "title": "My Goal",
    "description": "What this goal achieves",
    "project": true,
    "milestones": [
      { "id": "phase-1", "title": "Phase 1", "project": false }
    ],
    "issues": [
      { "title": "First task", "milestone": "phase-1", "assignTo": "engineer", "priority": "high" }
    ]
  }
}

When assembling a capability's primary skill, the system checks in order:

1. Role-specific override: agents/<role>/skills/<skill>.md
2. Shared skill: skills/<skill>.md

First match wins. Most capabilities only need a shared skill. Role-specific overrides exist only when a role brings a genuinely different approach.

Example: market-analysis module
├── skills/
│   └── market-analysis.md                    # Shared: any primary owner
├── agents/
│   ├── ux-researcher/skills/
│   │   └── market-analysis.md                # Override: user-focused
│   └── ceo/skills/
│       └── market-analysis.fallback.md       # Fallback: brief overview

• UX Researcher present → gets role-specific override (user-focused)
• Product Owner primary → gets shared skill
• CEO as fallback → gets fallback variant

Two kinds of docs end up in {company}/docs/:

• Templates (lowercase-kebab.md) — Shipped by modules, copied at assembly time. Guaranteed to exist if the module is active.
• Agent output (UPPERCASE.md) — Created by agents during execution. May or may not exist yet.

{
  "name": "my-role",
  "title": "My Role",
  "base": false,
  "division": "engineering",
  "tagline": "One-liner for wizard display and AI selection",
  "paperclipRole": "general",
  "description": "What this role does",
  "reportsTo": "ceo",
  "enhances": ["Takes over X from CEO"],
  "adapter": {
    "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6"
  }
}