Modes
Overview

13 Operating Modes

Talk to @buildcrew naturally. It auto-detects the mode from your message.

ModeExamplePipeline
Feature"Add user dashboard"Plan → Design → Dev → QA → Browser QA → Review
Project Audit"full project audit"Scan → Prioritize → Fix → Verify
Browser QA"browser qa localhost:3000"Playwright tests + health score
Security"security audit"OWASP + STRIDE + secrets + deps
Debug"debug: login broken"4-phase root cause investigation
Health"health check"Quality dashboard (0-10 score)
Canary"canary https://myapp.com (opens in a new tab)"Post-deploy monitoring
Review"code review"Multi-specialist + auto-fix
Ship"ship"Test → version → changelog → PR
QA Audit"qa"3 parallel subagent audit on git diff
Think"is this worth building?"6 forcing questions + design doc
Arch Review"architecture review"Scope + diagrams + failure modes
Design Review"design review"8-dimension scoring + fixes

Mode Priority

When a message matches multiple modes, a priority table resolves conflicts:

  1. Debug always wins (bug/error/broken)
  2. Think beats Feature ("is this worth", "should we build")
  3. Security beats Review ("security", "vulnerability")
  4. Specific reviews beat generic Review (architecture, design, QA audit)
  5. Feature is the default fallback

If truly ambiguous, the orchestrator asks you to choose.

Second Opinion

After any mode completes, buildcrew offers an independent second opinion:

  • Codex CLI available: different AI model reviews the work
  • No Codex: fresh Claude subagent with no session memory

Iterations

Each iteration runs the full pipeline from scratch:

@buildcrew Add user dashboard, 5 iterations