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A workspace in Orkestral is run by a team, not a single bot. A CEO orchestrator reads your repositories, plans the work, and delegates to specialists like Tech Lead, Code Reviewer, Frontend, Backend, DevOps, QA, and Designer. This guide shows you how to hire that team through the CEO in plain language, and how to fine tune each role afterward. You have two ways to grow a team:

Ask the CEO

Describe the team or agent you want in chat. The CEO proposes a hiring plan, you approve it, and Orkestral creates every agent with sensible roles and models.

Configure manually

Open the advanced form and set the adapter, model, capabilities, and reporting line for a single specialist yourself.
The fastest path is to let the CEO hire the whole team at once. Manual setup is best when you want one very specific agent or you want to tweak an existing role.

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How hiring works

When the CEO proposes a team, it writes a short plan plus one machine readable block per agent. Each block looks like <orkestral:create-agent name="..." role="..." />. When you approve, Orkestral parses those blocks and creates the agents. A few things happen automatically when a plan is approved:
Planning and review roles (anything matching review, lead, architect, manager, product, or coordinator) get a premium model, the same one your CEO uses, because they reason and decide. Executor roles (frontend, backend, devops, qa, and similar) get the local Forge model as primary, so day to day code changes cost nothing in API fees. The CEO can override this per agent by tagging a role as forge or premium in the plan.
If an agent with the same name, or the same normalized role, already exists in the workspace, that block is ignored. So re-running a hiring plan will not create twins. Role names are normalized, which means “front-end”, “frontend”, and “UI” all map to the same Frontend role.
Each agent can declare who it reports to. If the plan says reports_to="CEO" or names another hired agent, Orkestral sets that manager. If it is empty or unknown, the agent reports to the CEO by default.
Every workspace is backfilled with a core squad: a Tech Lead and Code Reviewer (both premium, reporting to the CEO), plus QA and Designer when your sources call for them. QA appears when you have frontend, backend, mobile, or infra code; Designer appears when you have frontend or mobile code.
After hiring, Orkestral scans your connected sources and syncs the team to match the stack it finds. This keeps the right specialists pointed at the right repositories.

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Hire a full team via the CEO

1

Open a chat with the CEO

Go to your workspace and start a session with the CEO (the orchestrator). This is the agent flagged as the orchestrator in your agent list. If you have not connected any repositories yet, do that first so the CEO can read your stack and plan accurately.
2

Describe the team you want

Tell the CEO what you are building and the team you have in mind. Be concrete about scope. For example:
“I am building a Next.js web app with a Node API and Postgres. Hire a full team: a tech lead, a frontend dev, a backend dev, a DevOps engineer, QA, and a designer.”
You can also just describe the product and let the CEO decide who is needed. The more context it has from your sources, the better the plan.
3

Review the proposed hiring plan

The CEO replies with a plan: a short rationale and a roster of agents, each with a name, role, and the model it will use. Read it and check three things:

Roles

The right specialists for your stack.

Models

Premium for planners and reviewers, Forge for executors.

Reporting

Who each agent reports to.
4

Approve the plan

If the plan looks right, tell the CEO to go ahead (for example, “approved, hire them”). On approval, Orkestral creates every agent, wires the reporting lines, guarantees the core squad, and matches specialists to your repositories. If you want changes, ask the CEO to adjust the roster before approving and it will rewrite the plan.
Nothing is created until you approve. A plan that is only described in prose, without the create-agent blocks, will not hire anyone. If that happens, ask the CEO to “output the create-agent blocks”.
5

Confirm the team appears

Open your agent list. You should see the new specialists plus the core squad, each with an avatar, a title, and a reporting line. From here you can start delegating issues, or open any agent to fine tune it.

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Hire a single agent

You do not have to hire a whole team. You can ask the CEO for one specialist, or build one by hand.
1

Open the new agent dialog

From the agents area, choose to add a new agent. The dialog opens in Ask CEO mode by default.
2

Name the agent and write its mission

Enter a Name and an optional Mission that describes what this agent should own. The mission is the single most useful field: it tells the CEO what the agent is for.
3

Ask the CEO to create it

Confirm. Orkestral opens a session with the CEO carrying your request, and the CEO proposes and creates the agent the same way it handles a full team. If no CEO exists in the workspace, the dialog warns you, so make sure your workspace has an orchestrator first.

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Configure roles manually

In the new agent dialog, choose Configure manually to open the advanced form. This is also where you fine tune the parameters of a specialist the CEO created.
1

Set identity

Pick an avatar, then enter a Name and a Title. The avatar is derived from the name until you choose one explicitly in the picker.
2

Set the reporting line

Use the Reports to pill to choose a manager. Pick the CEO, another agent, or no manager. When an agent reports to a manager, it validates its changes with that manager before applying them, which is how review gates work in a hierarchy.
3

Choose the adapter and model

Select an adapter type (the engine that runs the agent). Then pick the primary model. You can optionally enable a cheap model for lighter steps, and set the thinking effort from auto up to high for harder reasoning.
For executor roles, point the adapter at the local Forge so code changes run at zero API cost. Keep premium models for planning and review, where reasoning quality matters most.
4

Tune run options

Adjust the command, max turns, an instructions file (an absolute path to an AGENTS.md style file), extra args, and environment variables. Mark any sensitive variable as a secret so its value is stored encrypted rather than in plain text.
5

Set capabilities

Toggle what the agent is allowed to do:

Edit files

Let the agent change code in your sources.

Run commands

Let the agent run shell commands.

Create agents

Let the agent hire other agents. Usually reserved for the CEO.

Assign tasks

Let the agent delegate issues to others.
Match capabilities to the role. A Code Reviewer rarely needs to edit files, while a Frontend dev needs edit and command access. Keep create agents off for everyone except the CEO.
6

Add a system prompt

Write an optional system prompt to shape the agent’s behavior, voice, and priorities. Keep it focused on what this role owns.
7

Test the agent

Use Test agent to verify the adapter is reachable and configured. You get a pass, warn, or fail status with per check detail. Fix any failing check before you rely on the agent.
8

Create the agent

Confirm to create. The new agent joins the workspace immediately and is ready to receive work.

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The default roles

These are the roles Orkestral guarantees in every workspace, along with their default model tier and reporting line.
Premium model, reports to the CEO. Owns architecture, cross repo decisions, contracts, and delegation to specialists. Created in every workspace.
Premium model, reports to the CEO. Reviews the project as a whole system: contracts between repos, security, cost, performance, tests, regressions, and architectural fit. Created in every workspace.
Forge model, reports to the Tech Lead. Runs smoke tests, regression checks, and contract validation. Added when you have frontend, backend, mobile, or infra sources.
Forge model, reports to the Tech Lead. Protects the design system, accessibility, visual hierarchy, and component consistency. Added when you have frontend or mobile sources.
Frontend, Backend, DevOps, and similar executor roles run on Forge as primary and are matched to the repositories where their stack lives.

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What to do next

Delegate your first issue

Hand work to the team and watch the CEO route it to the right specialist.

Connect more sources

Add repositories so specialists get matched to the right code.

Understand the Forge

See how the local model executes code changes at zero API cost.

Tune adapters and models

Pick the right engine and model for each role.