Models & roles
Every crew member is a real model from a real provider, plus a role. The model decides how well the work gets done; the role decides what work it gets and who it talks to.
A model plus a role
When you add a crew member, you pick two things: the model (for example Gemini) and the role (for example Research). The role sets the member's mission, default permissions and its default connections to the rest of the crew.
Built-in roles
| Role | What it does | Usual connections |
|---|---|---|
| Manager | Plans, assigns, reviews, asks you for approvals | Delegates to everyone, receives every report |
| Engineer | Writes and changes code | Takes tasks from the manager, hands PRs to QA |
| QA | Writes and runs tests, reproduces bugs | Takes PRs from engineers, reports to the manager |
| Research | Reads docs, history, incidents and the web | Feeds context to the manager |
| Localization | Translates copy and release notes | Takes text from the manager, hands it to support |
| Support | Answers users and collects feedback | Feeds user feedback back to the manager |
You can also create custom roles with your own mission text. See Crews & the manager.
Which model for which role
Any model can take any role. These are the defaults we suggest after running many crews:
| Model | Strong at | Suggested role |
|---|---|---|
 Claude | Planning, careful review, long instructions | Manager |
 DeepSeek | Writing code quickly and cheaply | Engineer |
 GPT | Broad knowledge, tests, tool use | QA |
 Gemini | Very long context, documents, video | Research |
 Qwen | Many languages | Localization |
 Mistral | Fast, concise answers | Support |
Model strengths change with every release. Treat this table as a starting point and swap models freely; the crew's connections stay the same.
Switching a model
Open a crew member and pick another model from the list. Its role, memory and connections stay; only the brain changes. This is handy for comparing two models on the same job.