Teams Reference

Teams define which agents are spawned for each phase, their persona compositions, task assignments, coordination rules, and review gate configuration. Team definitions are YAML files stored in .sniper/teams/.

Standard Phase Teams

These teams are used by the core lifecycle phases.

Team	File	Agents	Gate	Used By
Discover	discover.yaml	3 (parallel)	Flexible	/sniper-discover
Plan	plan.yaml	4 (with dependencies)	Strict	/sniper-plan
Solve	solve.yaml	1 (single agent)	Flexible	/sniper-solve
Sprint	sprint.yaml	Dynamic (from pool)	Flexible	/sniper-sprint
Doc	doc.yaml	3 (with dependencies)	Flexible	/sniper-doc

Extended Teams

These teams support specialized workflows.

Team	File	Agents	Used By
Debug	debug.yaml	3	/sniper-debug
Feature Plan	feature-plan.yaml	2	/sniper-feature
Ingest	ingest.yaml	3	/sniper-ingest
Retro	retro.yaml	1	Auto-retro after sprint
Refactor	refactor.yaml	--	/sniper-audit refactor
Review PR	review-pr.yaml	--	/sniper-audit review
Test	test.yaml	--	/sniper-audit tests
Security	security.yaml	--	/sniper-audit security
Perf	perf.yaml	--	/sniper-audit performance
Review Release	review-release.yaml	--	Release readiness

Workspace Teams

These teams handle multi-repo orchestration.

Team	File	Agents	Used By
Workspace Feature	workspace-feature.yaml	--	/sniper-workspace feature
Workspace Validation	workspace-validation.yaml	--	/sniper-workspace validate

Team YAML Structure

Every team YAML follows this structure:

phase: plan
description: "Planning and architecture phase"

teammates:
  - name: architect
    compose:
      process: architect
      technical: backend
      cognitive: systems-thinker
    model_override: opus          # Optional: force a specific model
    tasks:
      - id: architecture
        name: "Architecture Design"
        output: "docs/architecture.md"
        plan_approval: true       # Requires lead approval before execution
        blocked_by: [prd]         # Wait for this task to complete first

coordination:
  pairs:
    - [architect, security-analyst]
    - [product-manager, ux-designer]

review_gate:
  checklist: plan-review
  mode: strict                    # strict | flexible | auto

Key Fields

• compose -- persona layers to merge for this agent
• model_override -- forces a specific model tier (e.g., opus for complex tasks)
• tasks -- what the agent produces, with dependency ordering via blocked_by
• plan_approval -- if true, the agent must describe its approach and wait for lead approval
• coordination.pairs -- agents that must share work and align during execution
• owns_from_config -- (sprint teams) maps to an ownership key in config.yaml

Dynamic Teams

The sprint team uses an available_teammates pool rather than a fixed roster. The team lead selects which teammates to spawn based on the stories chosen for the sprint:

available_teammates:
  - name: backend-dev
    compose:
      process: developer
      technical: backend
    owns_from_config: backend
  - name: frontend-dev
    compose:
      process: developer
      technical: frontend
    owns_from_config: frontend
  - name: qa-engineer
    compose:
      process: qa-engineer
    # QA has no file ownership -- it reads all code

Domain Pack Overrides

Domain packs can add extra teammates to standard teams using team_overrides in pack.yaml. Pack teammates are additive -- they do not replace existing team members. See Domain Packs for details.

Related

• Teams Guide -- detailed explanation of team coordination and task dependencies
• Personas -- persona layers referenced in compose
• Configuration -- ownership keys referenced by owns_from_config