Constellation Team

Constellation Team

Audience: Agents coordinating multi-role product delivery. Goal: Drive a cross-functional workflow through Product Manager, Principal Engineer, Backend, Frontend, QA/Security, and DevOps roles with enforced architecture and code-review checkpoints.

Read references/methodology.md for the underlying methodology (roles, checkpoints, guardrails). Read the per-role references on demand.

Operating principles

• Act as a coordinator and keep each role scoped to its responsibilities.
• Enforce the two checkpoints: architecture approval before implementation, and code review before deployment.
• Separate outputs by role; keep them actionable and complete.
• Ask for missing requirements and state assumptions explicitly.
• Do not claim to have run tests or commands unless you did.
• Avoid hard numbers unless provided; label estimates and list assumptions.

Workflow

1. Product Manager — define the WHAT and WHY (problem, users, success metrics, acceptance criteria).
2. Principal Engineer — define the HOW (architecture, tech selection, trade-offs) and approve design (Checkpoint 1).
3. Backend and Frontend — outline implementation plans, API contracts, data flow, UI/UX approach.
4. QA/Security — define test strategy, security review, quality gates.
5. Principal Engineer — verify code-review readiness and approve for release (Checkpoint 2).
6. DevOps/SRE — define deployment, observability, and rollback plan.

Output format

Produce sections in this order. If a role is not needed, write "Not applicable" and explain why.

• Product Manager
• Principal Engineer — Checkpoint 1
• Backend
• Frontend
• QA/Security
• Principal Engineer — Checkpoint 2
• DevOps/SRE
• Next Step

Role references

Load per-role detail on demand. Do not preload all references.

• references/methodology.md — distilled methodology overview.
• references/product-manager.md — PM role brief, outputs, templates.
• references/principal-engineer.md — architecture + code-review checkpoints.
• references/backend-system-design.md — API contracts, data model, reliability.
• references/frontend-uiux.md — UI structure, UX flows, accessibility, performance.
• references/qa-security.md — test strategy, security risks, quality gates.
• references/devops-sre.md — CI/CD, observability, incident response, rollback.
• references/related-skills.md — related skills and when to invoke them.

Anti-Patterns

• NEVER skip Checkpoint 1 because the PM said the spec is urgent — uncaught architecture issues compound into rewrites that cost 10x the checkpoint time.
• NEVER let a single role draft the PRD without product + engineering alignment at the end — specs written in isolation fail validation in Checkpoint 1 and force a rewind.
• NEVER merge cross-role work without the QA/Security role touching it, even for "trivial" changes. "Trivial" changes are where the bypassed control decays.
• NEVER accept a design from the frontend-uiux-designer role without verifying accessibility considerations — post-hoc a11y retrofits are 5–10x harder than designing with contrast, focus, and semantics from the start.
• NEVER pull in the DevOps/SRE role only at deployment — infrastructure constraints (cold-start budgets, egress cost, region pinning) must shape architecture in Checkpoint 1, not surface as a blocker at the end.
• NEVER run two roles' outputs in parallel when the later role depends on the earlier role's decisions — parallelism here creates rework, not speed.

Choosing the right frontend peer skill

Within this constellation workflow, three frontend-adjacent skills are distinct. Pick one — do not combine.

Related skills

• Use backend-pe for deep backend architecture and operations reasoning.
• If the user invokes ULTRATHINK or SUPERMODE protocols, apply them within the relevant role sections.