Skip to content

Member Roles

This reference documents the member roles defined in BotMinter profiles, including their hat models, event dispatch, and responsibilities. The agentic-sdlc-minimal profile ships three roles: engineer, sentinel, and chief-of-staff. The scrum profile (in development, not yet shipping in release builds) defines additional roles: human-assistant and architect.

human-assistant

scrum profile only (in development)

This role is part of the scrum profile, which is not yet available in release builds.

The human's proxy on the agentic scrum team. Manages the backlog, gates reviews, and coordinates the epic lifecycle through the human-in-the-loop (HIL) channel.

Hat model

Hat Triggers Responsibility
backlog_manager po.backlog Handle po:triage, po:backlog, po:ready — present to human via HIL
review_gater po.review Handle po:design-review, po:plan-review, po:accept — gate reviews

Board scanning is handled by the board-scanner skill (auto-injected into the coordinator via skills.overrides). The coordinator scans for status/po:* issues and dispatches to the appropriate work hat.

Event dispatch

Status Event Target hat Priority
status/po:triage po.backlog backlog_manager 1 (highest)
status/po:design-review po.review review_gater 2
status/po:plan-review po.review review_gater 3
status/po:accept po.review review_gater 4
status/po:backlog po.backlog backlog_manager 5
status/po:ready po.backlog backlog_manager 6 (lowest)

When no status/po:* issues are found, the coordinator publishes LOOP_COMPLETE (idle).

HIL interaction

All gates present artifacts to the human for decision. The HIL channel depends on the profile:

  • With bridge — messaging platform (human.interact), blocking (available on any profile with a configured bridge)
  • Without bridge — GitHub issue comments, non-blocking (agent posts review request, checks for response on next scan)
Gate What is presented Human action
Triage Epic summary Accept or reject
Backlog Prioritized backlog Select which to activate
Design review Design doc summary Approve or reject with feedback
Plan review Story breakdown Approve or reject with feedback
Ready Ready epics Decide when to activate
Accept Completed epic Accept or send back

Constraints

  • Never publish LOOP_COMPLETE except when idle
  • Always log to poll-log.txt before publishing events
  • Always use PROCESS.md comment format: ### 📝 po — <ISO-timestamp>

architect

scrum profile only (in development)

This role is part of the scrum profile, which is not yet available in release builds.

The team's technical authority. Produces design documents, story breakdowns, and story issues for epics. Pull-based — discovers work through board state.

Hat model

Hat Triggers Responsibility Transitions to
designer arch.design Produce design doc for epic status/po:design-review
planner arch.plan Decompose design into story breakdown status/po:plan-review
breakdown_executor arch.breakdown Create story issues from approved breakdown status/po:ready
epic_monitor arch.in_progress Monitor epic progress (M2: fast-forward) status/po:accept

Board scanning is handled by the board-scanner skill (auto-injected into the coordinator via skills.overrides). The coordinator scans for status/arch:* issues and dispatches to the appropriate work hat.

Event dispatch

Status label Event Hat activated
status/arch:breakdown arch.breakdown breakdown_executor
status/arch:plan arch.plan planner
status/arch:design arch.design designer
status/arch:in-progress arch.in_progress epic_monitor

Priority: arch:breakdown > arch:plan > arch:design > arch:in-progress

One issue is processed per scan cycle.

Designer backpressure

Before transitioning to status/po:design-review:

  • Design doc has a Security Considerations section
  • Design doc has acceptance criteria (Given-When-Then)
  • Design doc references applicable project knowledge
  • Design doc addresses all applicable invariants

Breakdown executor backpressure

Before transitioning to status/po:ready:

  • Each story has Given-When-Then acceptance criteria
  • Each story has proper labels (kind/story, status/dev:ready)
  • Each story body references the parent epic
  • The epic comment lists all created story numbers

Constraints

  • Always update team/ submodule before scanning
  • Always follow knowledge and invariant scoping defined in hat instructions

sentinel

The team's quality gate and PR watcher. The sentinel runs merge-gate tests on PRs before merging and scans project forks for orphaned PRs that need triage.

Hat model

Hat Triggers Responsibility Transitions to
pr_gate snt.gate Run merge-gate tests on PR, merge or reject done or eng:dev:implement
pr_triage snt.triage Scan project forks for orphaned PRs, create triage issues eng:po:triage

Board scanning is handled by the board-scanner skill (auto-injected into the coordinator via skills.overrides). The coordinator scans for snt:* issues and dispatches to the appropriate work hat.

Event dispatch

Status Event Hat activated
snt:gate:merge snt.gate pr_gate
(periodic) snt.triage pr_triage

Merge gate workflow

  1. Issue reaches snt:gate:merge via auto-advance from eng:arch:sign-off
  2. Sentinel reads merge-gate config from team/projects/<project>/knowledge/merge-gate.md
  3. Checks out PR branch and runs defined test commands
  4. If all pass — merges PR, advances to done
  5. If any fail — rejects, returns to eng:dev:implement

PR triage

  • Scans open PRs on project forks
  • Identifies orphaned PRs (no linked board issue)
  • Creates triage issues at eng:po:triage

Constraints

  • Never merge without running merge-gate tests
  • Always use PROCESS.md comment format: ### 🛡️ sentinel — <ISO-timestamp>

chief-of-staff

Process improvement and team coordination. The chief-of-staff handles operational tasks — process audits, retrospective actions, tooling improvements, and ad-hoc coordination work. It operates as a persistent Ralph loop with a single work hat.

Hat model

Hat Triggers Responsibility Transitions to
executor cos.execute Pick up cos:exec:todo tasks, execute them, report results cos:exec:done

Board scanning is handled by the board-scanner skill (auto-injected into the coordinator via skills.overrides). The coordinator scans for cos:* issues and dispatches to the executor hat.

Event dispatch

Status label Event Hat activated
cos:exec:todo cos.execute executor

Priority: Only one status triggers work (cos:exec:todo). The executor transitions through cos:exec:in-progress while working and to cos:exec:done on completion.

One issue is processed per scan cycle.

Interactive sessions

The chief-of-staff is the first role designed with the role-as-skill pattern in mind. In addition to running autonomously in a Ralph loop, any hired chief-of-staff member can be invoked interactively via bm chat:

  • bm chat <member> — hatless mode: agent has awareness of all hats, human drives the workflow
  • bm chat <member> --hat executor — hat-specific mode: agent is in character as the executor hat

See Coordination Model — Role-as-skill for the concept.

Constraints

  • Always update team/ submodule before scanning
  • Always use PROCESS.md comment format: ### 📋 chief-of-staff — <ISO-timestamp>
  • Always follow knowledge and invariant scoping defined in hat instructions

Planned roles (Milestone 4)

In the agentic-sdlc-minimal profile, the engineer role already implements the capabilities originally planned as separate roles — development, testing, and code review — via its hat model. The scrum profile plans to split these into dedicated roles for larger teams:

Role Purpose Status
dev Developer — implements stories, follows TDD (Test-Driven Development) Covered by engineer hats in agentic-sdlc-minimal
qe QE (Quality Engineer) — writes tests, verifies implementations Covered by engineer hats in agentic-sdlc-minimal
reviewer Code reviewer — reviews PRs, checks quality Covered by engineer hats in agentic-sdlc-minimal

The full story lifecycle with dedicated roles (QE writes tests, dev implements, QE verifies, reviewer reviews, architect signs off, PO (Product Owner) merges) is planned for Milestone 4 in the scrum profile.