Roles and Modes

GDD doesn't assign people to fixed categories. Instead, it defines roles (what you're doing right now) and modes (how the framework adapts its behavior). A person can switch roles between sessions or even within one.

Roles

Role	Focus
Developer	Writing and shipping code
Designer	Defining behavior (scenarios, specs)
Reviewer	Quality and safety
Scribe	Note-taking and vault work — PARA layout, frontmatter, daily notes, capture-process-organize loop
AI Agent	Any of the above, bounded by permissions

Roles aren't skill levels. A first-time contributor and a 20-year veteran can both be in the Developer role — they'll just have different modes active.

Today only the Scribe role has a dedicated skill file; the other roles are the assumed default and rely on mode and practice skills rather than a single role file.

Modes

Modes modify how the framework behaves. They compose freely.

Mentoring

The AI explains decisions, teaches practices in context, and offers more scaffolding. Not tied to seniority; anyone can request it. First time touching BDD? Ask for Mentoring mode, even if you've been coding for a decade.

The AI's job in Mentoring mode is to grow the human, not just ship the code. Every interaction is an opportunity to transfer understanding.

Quick

Minimal ceremony for short time windows. You have 15 minutes on your phone between responsibilities? Quick mode suggests appropriately-sized tasks, recovers context fast, and skips questions it can infer.

Session sizing examples: - 15 min: Write one BDD scenario, review one PR comment, fix one small bug - 30 min: Implement step definitions, triage review findings, write a skill stub - 45 min: End-to-end small feature with PR

Zen

Full ceremony for deep focus sessions. Saturday morning deep dive? Zen mode leans into thorough brainstorming, comprehensive reviews, auditing accumulated concerns, and completing large chunks of work end-to-end.

Zen mode may proactively suggest housekeeping if observations have accumulated in the Thalamus.

Flow

Adaptive ceremony for sessions that drift productively across multiple topics. The agent matches the human's rhythm, incorporates tangents naturally, and treats the Thalamus as a live collaboration surface rather than a session-bookend artifact. Often the natural default when no mode is set.

Modes compose freely — a learning contributor might run Mentoring + Quick on a busy day, or Zen + Mentoring for a deep teaching session. The per-mode skills under .agent/skills/gdd-<mode>/SKILL.md describe the specific behavior modifiers each mode applies.