How many Claude Code sessions does a crew need for small features?

Tares needs as few as three Claude Code sessions in a crew for a small feature: an orchestrator, a reviewer and one builder. If you want even less, one Claude Code session can plan and build a small project without a crew. You pick the setup by how big the work is, and you can start small and hand a bigger plan to the crew later.

How it works

A crew in Tares is made of these Claude Code sessions, all 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.

Because builders are counted per milestone and repo, a small feature in one repo with one milestone needs one builder. That makes three sessions: the orchestrator, the reviewer and that builder. Add a releaser only if you want tagging and deploys. The orchestrator starts more builders only as you add milestones or repos, up to the number you allow.

The crew is shared across projects. You bring it up once, and each new project adds its own builders while the orchestrator and reviewer serve them all.

If even three sessions is more than you need, work on the project in your own Claude Code session. tares factory session opens Claude Code with the Tares plugin, bound to the project, so your shared AGENTS.md and memory apply and the session’s record lands on the project. For a new idea it asks a few questions, writes a short spec and a ticket list on Tares, then builds it in that one session. If the plan turns out big, it offers the full spec and the hand-over to the crew instead.

Set it up

These steps follow Get started. Steps marked local apply to a local Tares, and steps marked cloud apply to Tares Cloud.

1. Check that Claude Code is signed in on a plan that allows background sessions, that gh is signed in with write access to the repos the crew works in, and that git, jq and curl are installed.

   gh auth login

2. Install the CLI.

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

3. Local: start Tares. The console opens at http://127.0.0.1:8787.

   tares up

4. Local: in a second terminal, start the MCP endpoint every crew session shares. Stations reach Tares only through it.

   tares mcp --transport streamable-http

5. Cloud: sign in and pick your workspace in the browser. There is no MCP endpoint to start.

   tares login

6. Give Tares access to GitHub: Settings > GitHub for a local Tares, or Connect GitHub on Tares Cloud.

7. Bring up the crew. The first run asks how far the crew may go, including how many builders run at once. For a small feature you can keep that number low.

   tares factory crew up

8. Plan the feature in the repo it builds on. /tares:spec interviews you, writes the milestones and tickets on Tares, and asks whether to hand the project to the crew.

   tares factory spec "what you want to build"

9. Answer the orchestrator’s questions in its session.

   tares factory crew attach orchestrator

To use one session instead of the crew, skip steps 7 to 9 and run this:

tares factory session "<idea>"

Run tares factory doctor at any point to check everything the crew needs.

What you get

• A small feature built with the smallest crew: one builder per milestone and repo, with the reviewer holding every pull request to a fixed bar before it merges.
• One session to talk to. Questions from every project reach you in the orchestrator, one at a time, each with a recommendation.
• A record that survives restarts. Tares keeps the plan, tickets, reviews, assumptions and your answers, so a crew that restarts carries on where it stopped.
• A path with no crew at all. A single session plans a small project and builds it, still on Tares, with your AGENTS.md and memory applied.
• Progress at a glance on the Crew page of the console, with each project’s builders and the pull requests waiting for review.

When something else fits

• Use one session with tares factory session when the feature is small and you are happy to drive it yourself. It offers the crew if the plan grows.
• Use the crew when a project spans several pull requests, several milestones or several repos, so builders can work side by side while the reviewer checks every change.
• A crew runs on one machine, on your own Claude Code login, against your own GitHub repos. It suits solo developers and very small teams.

Related