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What is the CTO Agent?

The CTO (Chief Technical Officer) is ADE’s persistent, project-scoped AI surface for coordinating worker agents. Its system prompt includes a Daily Context routine (check recent decisions and worker activity at each activation) and a Decision Framework (act autonomously when safe, escalate when risky). These protocols survive compaction.

Worker Wakeups

Workers can be woken on demand or by per-worker timer settings from CTO > Team.

Org Chart Model

The CTO sits at the top of an agent hierarchy. It spawns and coordinates specialized Worker agents (Employees) to handle specific tasks.

Bidirectional Linear Sync

Reads from and writes to Linear. Creates issues from code changes, updates issue status when PRs merge, and adds analysis comments automatically.

PR Convergence

Drives PRs to merge readiness autonomously — starts convergence rounds, monitors CI and review comments, and manages the full resolution loop via five dedicated operator tools.

Project Awareness

Uses current lane, PR, Linear, worker run, and repository context to make delegation decisions.

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CTO vs. Regular Agents

Understanding how the CTO differs from the agents you spawn manually (in chat sessions or worker runs) helps you know when to use each.

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The Org Chart Model

The CTO implements an org chart model for AI work delegation.
The CTO sits at the top. Below it are Worker agents (also called Employees) — specialized sub-agents the CTO creates and assigns to specific tasks or lanes. Workers have:
  • A name, role, title, and capabilities that define their focus
  • Optional Linear identity matching fields so incoming Linear work can map back to the right worker
  • An adapter and model/process command for the runtime that will execute work
  • A monthly budget and optional heartbeat settings
The CTO coordinates workers: it assigns tasks, monitors their output, routes their results back to Linear or PRs, and intervenes if a worker is stuck or over budget.

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Explore CTO Features

Setting Up the CTO

Walk through onboarding, worker heartbeat configuration, and verifying the CTO team is active.

Linear Integration

Connect Linear for bidirectional issue sync, status updates, and intelligent triage.

Workers & Budget

Hire workers, manage budgets, configure practical workflows, and troubleshoot issues.