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Squad playbook

What each role does when agents build. The operating model lists the squad; this playbook redefines the work.

Roles redefined​

  • Product Owner — owns outcomes, the PFD (toolkit/templates/pfd.md) and acceptance. Decomposes the PFD into agent-sized briefs; decides what "good" means.
  • Business Analyst — turns SME knowledge into machine-consumable specs (the domain brief toolkit/templates/domain-brief.md, decision tables, glossary).
  • Senior Dev (Lead) — directs agents and is accountable for every merged line, regardless of author. Owns architecture and the tech-selection ADRs.
  • Intermediate Dev — operates agents and verifies their output; grows judgement toward directing.
  • Manual Tester — the professional sceptic of agent output; explores where automation is blind.
  • Auto Tester — builds and maintains the harnesses agents run against.

Anti-patterns to refuse​

  • Rubber-stamping agent output because CI is green and it looks plausible.
  • Typing instead of directing — hand-writing what should be directed, or hand-fixing what should be re-prompted (see the three-strikes rule).
  • Reviewing formatting — that's the formatter's job; spend review on intent, domain and test honesty.

Decision rights​

Who is responsible/accountable/consulted/informed across the phases and gates is defined in the lifecycle RACI — including, critically, who may and may not waive each gate. This kills the failure mode agent speed amplifies most: "everyone assumed someone else reviewed it."

Shared specialists​

AI, Security, DevOps, Data, Design and an Agile Coach are pooled across squads as enabling teams — embedded for a phase, on office hours, as a gate reviewer, or on-call — and they build capability in squads rather than doing the work forever.