KarnelVault picks only the roles your project needs from the 23 below and sets up each role's skills and rules (CLAUDE.md) in your dev environment. Browse by domain tab.
Called first on any project — they decide what to build and why, and the broad shape of how.
🔬
Researcher
5 skills
Digs out what to build and whether the facts hold up.
5 skills it covers — when to use
Market signal research
when When spotting opportunity from trend, demand and competition signals
Competitive · benchmark analysis
when When comparing similar products' strengths, weaknesses and positioning
User problem definition
when When nailing whose problem, and which, in one sentence
Deep fact-check research
when When verifying claims and numbers across multiple cited sources
Concept candidate scoring
when When ranking ideas by value and feasibility
📋
Planning Director
8 skills
Sets the project's overall planning, design and gates.
8 skills it covers — when to use
Vision one-pager
when When capturing what, why and for whom on a single page
Writing a PRD
when When specifying a feature with acceptance criteria and non-goals
Full blueprint
when When laying out the whole screen, data and flow design
MVP scope cut
when When slicing scope into Prototype/MVP/V1/Later
Prioritization
when When deciding what to do first by value, effort and risk
Risk register
when When listing uncertainties, dependencies and failure modes
Gate check
when When checking readiness before handing off to implementation
Workflow translator
when When turning a vague, rough request ('just build it') into a concrete pre-implementation plan
🏛️
Architect · Tech Lead
8 skills
Final call on tech stack, module boundaries and data flow.
8 skills it covers — when to use
Tech stack choice
when When choosing engine, language, framework and hosting (defaults: game=Unity · app=Flutter · web=Next.js/Cloudflare)
Module boundary design
when When managing coupling via dependency direction and interfaces
Data flow design
when When deciding client-server-DB boundaries and state ownership
Build · environment strategy
when When setting repo structure, CI and deploy targets
Tech risk · trade-offs
when When weighing scalability, cost and maintenance to decide
Code standards · review gate
when When setting naming, test and refactor standards
First work packet
when When cutting a Phase-0 planning-only packet before implementation
SSoT indexing · compaction
when When compacting scattered docs into an indexed SSoT
Roles any game / web / app needs to actually ship and operate. In solo dev one person can wear several.
🗄️
Server · Data Engineer
13 skills
Owns APIs, auth, server logic and payments together with the data model and integrity.
13 skills it covers — when to use
API + data model co-design
when When setting the client/server boundary — endpoints and the schema behind them together
Domain data modeling
when Initial design of user, order, payment and event entities
Auth · authorization
when Members, paid, admin + the data-access policy
Server business logic
when Block client tampering + set transaction boundaries
Transaction · consistency design
when When guaranteeing payments, currency and rewards atomically
Schema migration
when Changing prod DB structure (rollback-safe)
Query · index optimization
when When latency or cost is high (incl. N+1)
Cache strategy
when When reducing read load and latency (Redis · CDN · TTL)
Payment · webhook integration
when When adding monetization (idempotency · reconciliation data)
Background jobs
when Push, settlement, reward payout (queue · retry)
Backup · PII separation
when Loss prevention · compliance (PITR · PII anonymization · deletion)
API · data testing
when Server-change regression + data-quality checks
Leaderboard · score validation · anti-abuse
when Server-side validation, tamper detection and anomaly filtering for online ranking/score submission
⚙️
Platform · Security Engineer
13 skills
Owns CI/CD, containers, secrets, permissions, vulnerabilities and rollback.
13 skills it covers — when to use
CI pipeline
when PR quality gate (lint · test · build + security scan)
CD deploy automation
when Stabilizing repeat deploys (staging · prod · approval)
Container · env isolation
when Consistent runs + test/prod isolation
Secret management
when Keeping secrets out of code (Secret Manager · Vault)
Permissions · access policy
when Least privilege — protect admin, paid and PII
Vulnerability · dependency scan
when OWASP · SCA · known CVEs
Observability · alerting
when Detecting failures and breaches (logs · metrics · traces)
Rollback · incident response
when Recovery on failed deploy or breach (canary · feature flag)
Infra-as-code · cost
when Reproducible cloud (Terraform) + ops-cost monitoring
E2E · integration tests
when When verifying core flows automatically
Smoke test
when When checking basic behavior right after deploy
Release auto-verification gate
when When gating deploy behind automated pass criteria
Crash · log reproduction
when When reproducing a prod failure as a test
📈
LiveOps · Operations
12 skills
Events, support, retention, push and announcements.
12 skills it covers — when to use
Live event design
when When raising retention (check-in · season · sale · reward)
Remote config
when Tuning ops values without an app update
Announcement system
when Communicating changes to users (in-app notice · maintenance · notes)
Push campaign
when Re-engagement and event notices (segment · deeplink)
CS issue triage
when Handling user support (classify · account lookup · compensate)
Ops admin tools
when Manual ops (user search · grant · ban · logs)
Incident communication
when On outage or data error (notice · compensation · postmortem)
Retention campaign
when Lifecycle intervention (churn-risk · new · paying users)
Content calendar
when Preventing ops schedule clashes
Help center · FAQ
when When building user self-service support
Ticket · refund · account recovery process
when When you need a flow that resolves user issues end-to-end
SLA · response macros
when When setting response standards and canned replies
📊
Analytics
9 skills
Event design, funnels, dashboards and A/B.
9 skills it covers — when to use
Event taxonomy design
when First design of analytics logging (naming rules)
