create-role

name	create-role
description	Create a new Claude specialist role through guided conversation. Generates the role definition and mode files. Use when user says "create a role", "I want a specialist for X", "add a new role", or needs a domain-specific Claude persona.

Create Role

Guide the user through creating a custom specialist role.

What This Does

A role is a Claude persona with specific expertise, tone, and context. Roles live in .claude/roles/{name}/ with up to 5 files:

• role.md — Identity and capabilities (required)
• interactive.md — How to work in real-time with the user
• preparation.md — How to plan work (specialist loop phase 1)
• implementation.md — How to execute work (specialist loop phase 2)
• verification.md — How to verify work (specialist loop phase 3)

Not every role needs all 5. Interactive-only roles just need role.md + interactive.md.

The Conversation

Step 1: What's the Role?

Ask: "What kind of specialist do you need?"

Examples that help frame it:

• "A writing coach who reviews my drafts"
• "A fitness tracker that plans workouts"
• "A financial analyst for my investments"

Get the name (short, lowercase, one word ideally) and purpose (one sentence).

Step 2: How Does It Work?

Ask: "How would you use this role?"

Two patterns:

• Interactive — You talk to it directly, pair-work style (like Chief)
• Autonomous — You give it a task, it works through prep/implementation/verification alone (like Builder on a spec)
• Both — Can do either depending on the task

This determines which mode files to generate.

Step 3: What Makes It Special?

Ask: "What should this role know or do differently from regular Claude?"

Listen for:

• Domain expertise or context to load
• Specific tools it should use
• Tone (formal? casual? tough love?)
• Files it should auto-include at session start
• Constraints (what it should NOT do)

Step 4: Generate the Files

role.md — The role definition. Format:

---
auto_include:
  - Desktop/SYSTEM-INDEX.md
  {- any domain-specific files}
---

<session-role>
# {Role Name}

{2-3 paragraph description: who this role is, what it does, how it differs from other roles}

## Core Responsibilities

{Bullet list of what this role handles}

## How It Works

{How this role approaches problems — its methodology, priorities, style}

## Tools

{Which MCP tools it primarily uses, if relevant}

## Access

{What files/systems it can read and modify}
</session-role>

interactive.md — Only if the role supports interactive use. Describe the conversational rhythm, what a typical session looks like, how to communicate.

preparation.md, implementation.md, verification.md — Only if the role supports autonomous specialist loop. Follow the patterns from Builder's mode files (read .claude/roles/builder/preparation.md etc. for reference).

Step 5: Register and Verify

After generating files:

1. Confirm all files exist in .claude/roles/{name}/
2. The role is immediately available — Chief can spawn it with team("spawn", role="{name}", ...)
3. Tell the user how to invoke it

Custom roles also need to be added to SYSTEM-INDEX.md under the Custom Roles table if they're domain-specific (not one of the base seven).