What will the crew ask me while it works on internal refactors?
Tares asks you two kinds of questions while the crew works: steps only you can take on your machine, and a keep-or-change question at the end of each milestone. You answer the crew’s questions in the orchestrator’s session, and each answer is recorded as you typed it.
How it works
The crew asks the same two kinds of questions on any project you hand to it, internal refactors included. A project, end to end follows one real project that raised five questions across eight merged pull requests.
Steps only you can take on your machine. The crew cannot do these for you. In the example project there were two:
- Trust the repo folder in Claude Code once, so the builder can start.
- Give Tares a GitHub token, so it can read pull request, CI and merge state.
A question at the end of each milestone. When the crew meets something the plan does not cover, it picks the sensible answer, writes it down as an assumption and carries on. At the end of each milestone the orchestrator brings you all of that milestone’s assumptions in one question: do you keep the choices the crew made on its own? Each assumption names the tickets it touches and the builder that made it.
Where you answer. You answer the crew’s questions in the orchestrator’s session. The answer goes into the Decisions fold of the project page as you typed it, up to 4,000 characters. A long pasted reply with several lines or paragraphs matches in full.
When a station needs you directly. A station that asked for a permission or a prompt shows as Waiting for you and stays stopped until you reply. Open its session in a terminal and answer there, or say “continue”.
Two more questions can come up:
- If you chose at
crew upthat the crew waits for your yes before every merge, you get a merge approval question for each merge. - After the last milestone, the orchestrator asks whether the project is finished. With no project left, it asks whether to stop the crew.
Set it up
-
Check that Claude Code is signed in, then bring up the crew. Your choice at
crew upsets how far the crew may go, such as whether it merges on its own once the reviewer passes a pull request and CI is green.tares factory crew up -
Plan the project. The spec session asks you its own questions, and the plan comes with milestones that each have acceptance checks.
tares factory spec "what you want to build" -
Hand the project to the crew when the spec session asks. The orchestrator picks it up and starts a builder for the first milestone.
-
Watch for questions on the Crew page in the console (
http://127.0.0.1:8787/crewlocally). Questions waiting for you appear at the top, and the project page lists them under questions waiting for you. -
Answer in the orchestrator’s session. Do the machine steps it names, such as trusting the repo folder or giving Tares a GitHub token, and then reply.
-
At each milestone end, read the assumptions and say whether you keep them. To make an answer stand from now on, say so, for this project or for every project.
-
If a station shows Quiet, run
tares factory crew watchto bring it back. If a station shows Waiting for you, answer in its session or say “continue”.
What you get
- A short list of questions, none of them hidden. Every question and your answer, in your own words, sits in the Decisions fold, newest first.
- Every choice the crew made on its own sits in the Assumptions fold, with whether you kept it.
- Work that does not stop for small choices. The crew picks the sensible answer, records it and carries on, and you review all of a milestone’s choices at once.
- A clear signal when something needs you. A station that is Waiting for you shows a notice with its last message, and an Idle station needs nothing and resumes by itself.
- A project that closes with your words. When you say it is done, Tares marks the project Done and moves it to the finished list.
If you are new to the factory, start with Get started.
When something else fits
- If you want fewer approval questions, change what you choose at
crew upfor how far the crew may go. Merging on its own after review and green CI means no merge approvals. - If you want to change the direction of the work, talk to the orchestrator rather than waiting for a milestone question.