Developer Team PersonaPack¶

The developer-team PersonaPack provides a 2-pizza software development team (7 agents) that collaborates on a single GitHub repository. Each agent has a distinct role, schedule, and set of responsibilities — coordinating through GitHub issues, pull requests, and code reviews.

Agents¶

Agent	Role	Schedule	Skills
Tech Lead	Triages issues, reviews architecture, coordinates team, merges PRs	Every 2h	github-gitops, code-review, software-dev
Backend Dev	Implements server-side features, APIs, business logic	Sweep 1h	github-gitops, code-review, software-dev
Frontend Dev	Implements UI components, styling, client-side logic	Sweep 1h	github-gitops, code-review, software-dev
QA Engineer	Writes tests, finds bugs, validates coverage	Sweep 45m	github-gitops, code-review, software-dev
Code Reviewer	Reviews all PRs for correctness, security, performance	Sweep 30m	github-gitops, code-review, software-dev
DevOps Engineer	Maintains CI/CD, Dockerfiles, deployment configs	Sweep 2h	github-gitops, code-review, software-dev
Docs Writer	Updates documentation, READMEs, changelogs	Weekdays 6pm	github-gitops, code-review, software-dev

Prerequisites¶

GitHub token: A personal access token or GitHub App with repo scope, stored as a Kubernetes secret named github-gitops-token
AI provider: An API key for OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure, or Ollama

Quick Start¶

Via the TUI (recommended)¶

sympozium

Navigate to the Personas tab (press 1)
Select developer-team and press Enter
Choose your AI provider and paste an API key
Complete the GitHub authentication wizard
Confirm — the controller creates all 7 instances and schedules

Via kubectl¶

# 1. Apply the PersonaPack
kubectl apply -f config/personas/developer-team.yaml

# 2. Create the AI provider secret
kubectl create secret generic dev-team-openai-key \
  --from-literal=OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-... \
  -n sympozium-system

# 3. Create the GitHub token secret
kubectl create secret generic github-gitops-token \
  --from-literal=GH_TOKEN=ghp_... \
  -n sympozium-system

# 4. Activate the pack
kubectl patch personapack developer-team -n sympozium-system --type=merge -p '{
  "spec": {
    "enabled": true,
    "authRefs": [{"provider": "openai", "secret": "dev-team-openai-key"}]
  }
}'

How the Team Coordinates¶

Agents coordinate entirely through GitHub:

Tech Lead triages issues by adding role labels (backend, frontend, qa, devops, docs)
Developers pick up issues matching their role label
Each agent creates a branch following the convention sympozium/<role>/<issue>-<description>
Code Reviewer reviews all PRs labelled sympozium and leaves structured feedback
QA Engineer validates PRs for test coverage and opens follow-up PRs for missing tests
Tech Lead merges approved PRs and posts status updates on tracking issues

Branch naming convention¶

sympozium/backend/<issue>-<desc>    # Backend work
sympozium/frontend/<issue>-<desc>   # Frontend work
sympozium/devops/<issue>-<desc>     # CI/CD and infra
sympozium/docs/<issue>-<desc>       # Documentation
sympozium/qa/<issue>-<desc>         # Test additions
sympozium/fix/<issue>-<desc>        # Bug fixes

Deduplication¶

Before creating issues or PRs, agents check for existing work:

gh pr list --repo "$REPO" --label "sympozium" --state open
gh issue list --repo "$REPO" --label "sympozium" --state open

If another agent has already opened a PR for the same issue, they review it instead of duplicating work.

Skills¶

The developer-team pack uses three skills:

Skill	Purpose
`github-gitops`	GitHub CLI access (`gh`), git operations, PR/issue management
`code-review`	Structured code review methodology, security patterns, Go-specific review
`software-dev`	Development workflow (clone, branch, code, test, PR), team coordination patterns

software-dev skill¶

The software-dev SkillPack (config/skills/software-dev.yaml) is a new skill created for this pack. It teaches agents how to:

Clone and branch from the target repository
Explore and understand an unfamiliar codebase
Write clean commits with conventional commit messages
Open well-structured PRs that reference issues
Coordinate with other team members via GitHub
Review code and leave constructive feedback

It uses the same github-gitops sidecar image (which includes gh, git, bash, and jq).

Customisation¶

Targeting a specific repository¶

Set the target repository via skill params when creating instances manually:

spec:
  skills:
    - skillPackRef: github-gitops
      params:
        targetRepository: "myorg/myrepo"
        defaultBranch: "main"
        prLabels: "sympozium,automated"
        prReviewers: "platform-team"

When using the TUI onboarding wizard, you'll be prompted for the target repository.

Disabling individual agents¶

You can disable specific agents without removing the entire pack:

kubectl patch personapack developer-team --type=merge -p '{
  "spec": {
    "excludePersonas": ["docs-writer", "devops-engineer"]
  }
}'

Or toggle them in the TUI by pressing Enter on the pack and using Space to toggle agents.

Adjusting schedules¶

Edit the PersonaPack YAML to change intervals:

personas:
  - name: code-reviewer
    schedule:
      type: sweep
      interval: "15m"  # Review PRs more frequently

Integration Test¶

An end-to-end integration test simulates the full team workflow on a real GitHub repository:

# Requires GITHUB_TOKEN with repo scope
GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_... bash test/integration/developer_team_test.sh

The test: 1. Tech Lead creates a tracking issue 2. Backend Dev creates a Dockerfile and opens a PR 3. DevOps Engineer creates docker-compose + CI workflow and opens a PR 4. Docs Writer updates the README and opens a PR 5. Code Reviewer reviews all 3 PRs 6. QA Engineer validates the Dockerfile with a structured checklist 7. Tech Lead posts a final coordination status update

All actions happen on the real repository using the gh CLI — the same tooling the agents use in production.

Helm¶

The developer-team pack is included in the Helm chart and installed by default:

# values.yaml
defaultPersonas:
  enabled: true   # Installs PersonaPack CRDs (disabled until activated)

The pack is installed in a disabled state. Activate it via the TUI or kubectl after setting up auth.