Hem Vault

Feature: Orchesto & personas

Overview

Orchesto is a project-local multi-phase delivery skill: optional brainstorm → always-ask PRD gate → optional CPO → architect → implementor → reviewer → fix loop (≤3) → summary.

It is for shipping a feature end-to-end with plan, validations, and review — not tiny one-off edits or a lone PR review. It is not Orca / orca-cli.

Owned by What
Vault (MCP) Persona bodies, setup playbook, skill template note, coding/PR process via resolve_action
Project skill Pipeline procedure only — who seats when, gates, artifact paths, fix-loop cap

Personas

Seat Role In Orchesto?
Brainstormer Critical multi-turn conversation; handoff brief on proceed Optional pre-step (user-invoked only)
CPO PRD / product requirements Optional (user yes at PRD gate)
Architect plan.md + validations.md Required
Implementor Build against plan/validations Required
Reviewer Change gate vs validations → review-report.md Required
Auditor Holistic repo/area audit → .audits/ Standalone (not Orchesto)

Personas are workflows under workflows/global/ (project overlays win). They are not resolve_action ids.

How it works

[brainstormer?] ──proceed──► PRD gate (always ask)
                              │ yes → CPO → prd.md → user approves
                              │ no  ──────────────────────────────┐
                              ▼                                   ▼
                          architect → plan + validations → user approves
                              ▼
                          implementor → code
                              ▼
                          reviewer → review-report.md
                              │ changes_required & rounds < 3 → implementor ↔ reviewer
                              │ pass → summary
                              │ still failing after 3 → stop with blockers

Hard stops: brainstormer proceed-yes; CPO PRD approval (if opted in); architect plan/validation approval.

Artifacts under .plans/<feature-slug>/ (gitignored):

File Author
brainstorm.md brainstormer (handoff only)
prd.md CPO (if opted in)
plan.md architect
validations.md architect
review-report.md reviewer (each round)

Auditor writes .audits/<scope-slug>/report.md separately.

Capabilities

  • Sized plans with checkable validations
  • Optional product shaping (brainstormer and/or CPO)
  • Validation-driven review with pass / changes_required
  • Bounded fix loop
  • Per-repo persona overlays without changing the skill DAG
  • Standalone auditor; standalone resolve_action still works without Orchesto

How to use

See Orchesto guide for setup, ship, brainstorm, and audit flows.

Quick phrases

  • setup orchesto — install project skill + ensure personas
  • Ship a feature end-to-end — skill matches; answer the PRD ask
  • brainstorm / seat brainstormer — conversation seat (never auto)
  • audit — standalone auditor

Edge cases

  • Never web-search for Orchesto setup — vault playbook only
  • Brainstormer and CPO are never auto-seated without an explicit user yes
  • PRD ask is mandatory before architect (hinting OK; skipping not)
  • Skill is project-local only — never install to ~/.agents / ~/.cursor as the primary path
  • Reviewer ≠ auditor
  • After 3 failed review rounds: stop; summarize blockers