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How many Claude Code sessions does a crew need for internal refactors?

Tares needs three Claude Code sessions for a crew that works one repo and one milestone: an orchestrator, a reviewer and one builder. Each extra milestone or repo in your plan adds one builder, up to the number you allow. For a small project you can skip the crew and use one session with tares factory session.

How it works

A crew in the software factory for Claude Code is made of fixed roles, and every member is a Claude Code session running in the background on your machine:

  • Orchestrator: hands out work, answers the others and brings you what needs you. It is the only session you talk to.
  • Reviewer: reviews every pull request to a fixed bar and posts its verdict on the pull request.
  • Builders: one per milestone and repo of a project, started by the orchestrator. Each takes a ticket, works on its own branch, opens a pull request and merges it once the reviewer passes it and CI is green.
  • Releaser: only if you ask for one. It tags and deploys. Without it, tickets end at merged on main.

So the count for your internal refactor comes from your plan:

  • One repo and one milestone: three sessions, the orchestrator, the reviewer and one builder.
  • Several milestones or several repos: the same orchestrator and reviewer, plus one builder for each milestone and repo.
  • A releaser: add one session if you want tagging and deploys.

The orchestrator starts the builders, so you do not launch them yourself. On the first crew up, Tares asks how many builders may run at once, and that answer caps the number of builder sessions. The same orchestrator and reviewer serve every project you hand the crew, so a second refactor adds builders, not a second crew.

Tares holds the plan, the tickets, the reviews and your answers. If a session stops, the crew carries on from the record when it restarts.

Set it up

Follow the order on Get started. Claude Code must be signed in, gh signed in with write access to the repos the crew works in, and git, jq and curl installed.

  1. Install the CLI.

    uv tool install tares     # or: brew install glassflow/tap/tares

  2. Start Tares locally. Tares serves its console at http://127.0.0.1:8787.

    tares up

  3. In a second terminal, start the MCP endpoint every crew session shares. Crew sessions reach Tares only through it.

    tares mcp --transport streamable-http

    On Tares Cloud, run tares login instead and pick your workspace in the browser. There is no MCP endpoint to start.

  4. Give Tares access to GitHub: add a token or App under Settings > GitHub on a local Tares, or choose Connect GitHub on Tares Cloud.

  5. Bring up the crew and set the number of builders that may run at once when it asks.

    tares factory crew up

  6. Plan the refactor in the repo it builds on, or in a folder that holds its repos. The plan decides how many milestones and repos, and so how many builders.

    tares factory spec "what you want to build"

  7. Check the crew with tares factory crew status, which lists the stations and a line per project. tares factory projects shows each project’s builders and repos.

If one session is enough: skip the crew and run tares factory session. It opens Claude Code with the Tares plugin, bound to a project, so your shared AGENTS.md and memory apply and the record lands on the project. You can give it an idea to plan a small project and build it right there. If the plan turns out big, the session offers the full spec and the hand-over to the crew instead.

What you get

  • A session count you can work out before you start: three for one repo and one milestone, then one more builder per extra milestone and repo.
  • A single point of contact. You talk only to the orchestrator, and questions reach you there one at a time, each with a recommendation.
  • Review on every pull request. The reviewer holds each change to a fixed bar, and builders merge only after the reviewer passes it and CI is green.
  • Progress on the Crew page of the Tares console, with each open project and its builders.
  • A record that survives restarts, because Tares keeps the plan, tickets, reviews and your answers.
  • A single-session route for small projects, with the hand-over to the crew available later.

When something else fits

  • Use tares factory session when the work is small enough for one Claude Code session and you do not need a separate reviewer.
  • Use the crew when the plan spans several milestones or repos and you want every pull request reviewed before it merges. See Get started for the full setup.

Still stuck? Get help

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