Additional

Digital Twin Personas

Synced from github.com/CoWork-OS/CoWork-OS/docs

Digital Twin Personas are pre-built AI agent templates that create role-specific digital twins for team members. Each twin absorbs cognitively draining work — status reporting, PR triage, meeting prep, dependency tracking — so the human can stay in deep focus.

A persona template now bundles prompt/personality defaults, recommended skills, display metadata, and cognitive offload categories. Activating a template creates a fully configured role preset in one click, but it does not automatically enroll that role into the always-on core runtime.

Access from Settings > Digital Twins or Mission Control > Add Digital Twin. For company-ops workflows, you can also open Digital Twins from Settings > Companies to create operators in company context. Digital twins can also be activated through Plugin Packs — 9 of the 19 bundled packs link directly to a persona template.

Digital Twins are intentionally separate from the core automation runtime. See Workflow Intelligence, Core Automation, and Heartbeat v3 for the architecture source of truth.


Concepts

Persona Template

A JSON blueprint defining a digital twin. Each template specifies:

FieldPurpose
Role configCapabilities, autonomy level, personality, system prompt
Cognitive offloadWhich categories of mental work the twin absorbs
SkillsRecommended skill references with reasons
MetadataCategory, tags, seniority range, industry-agnostic flag

Relation To Core Automation

Digital Twins are not direct heartbeat or Workflow Intelligence owners.

That means:

  • Twin activation does not automatically create an automation profile
  • Twin templates do not own heartbeat cadence, cooldown, budget, or workflow-intelligence target state
  • Mission Control can still show the role, but core automation is attached separately through automation profiles

If you want a twin-backed operator to become always-on, activate the template first, then attach a separate automation profile to that role.

Cognitive Offload Categories

Each template targets specific categories of work that fragment attention:

CategoryWhat It Absorbs
context-switchingGathering context when moving between projects or discussions
status-reportingCompiling progress updates, standup summaries, executive briefs
information-triageFiltering, prioritizing, and routing incoming information
decision-preparationAssembling data, options, and trade-offs for pending decisions
documentationKeeping docs current, writing change summaries, audit trails
review-preparationBuilding review queues, risk assessments, review checklists
dependency-trackingMonitoring external dependencies, vulnerabilities, blockers
compliance-checksChecking against standards, SLAs, regulatory requirements
knowledge-curationOrganizing, tagging, and surfacing institutional knowledge
routine-automationHandling repetitive checks and routine operational tasks

Optional Automation Pairing

When a team wants a twin to act as an always-on operator, the intended flow is:

  1. activate the twin template
  2. review the resulting role prompt, skills, and company linkage
  3. attach an automation profile separately
  4. monitor the role from Mission Control and the core harness

This keeps persona choice separate from cognition ownership.


Available Templates

Engineering

TemplateAutonomyKey Offload Areas
Software EngineerSpecialistReview prep, dependency tracking, context switching, documentation
Hardware EngineerSpecialistDocumentation, compliance, dependency tracking, decision prep
System QASpecialistReview prep, compliance, automation, status reporting
DevOps / SRE EngineerSpecialistAutomation, compliance, dependency tracking, context switching

Management

TemplateAutonomyKey Offload Areas
Engineering ManagerLeadStatus reporting, context switching, decision prep, info triage
Technical DirectorLeadDecision prep, status reporting, context switching, knowledge curation
VP of EngineeringLeadStatus reporting, decision prep, info triage, context switching

Product

TemplateAutonomyKey Offload Areas
Product ManagerLeadInfo triage, decision prep, documentation, context switching

Data & Analytics

TemplateAutonomyKey Offload Areas
Data Scientist / AnalystSpecialistDecision prep, context switching, documentation, knowledge curation

Operations

TemplateAutonomyKey Offload Areas
Technical WriterSpecialistDocumentation, knowledge curation, review prep
Founder Office OperatorLeadCross-functional routing, operational triage, founder proxy work
Company PlannerLeadGoal-to-issue translation, planning loops, stalled-work review
Growth OperatorSpecialistFunnel review, growth experiments, outbound and acquisition ops
Customer Ops LeadLeadService quality, unresolved commitments, support and retention follow-up

Setup

Activating a Template

  1. Open Settings > Digital Twins or open Mission Control and click Add Digital Twin
  2. Browse templates — filter by category or search by name/tags
  3. Click a template card to open the activation dialog
  4. Customize:
    • Twin Name — e.g., "Sarah's SW Twin" or "Backend Team Twin"
    • Role prompt and identity
    • Recommended skills
    • Company context, when relevant
  5. Click Create Digital Twin

The twin appears as a new agent in Mission Control, ready to work as a role/persona preset. If you want it to participate in the core runtime, attach automation separately.

Company-Aware Activation

When Digital Twins is opened from Settings > Companies, or when a company context is already selected:

  • the panel shows a company context strip
  • the template gallery defaults to venture/operator recommendations
  • recommended templates such as Company Planner and Founder Office Operator are promoted first
  • created twins get a persisted company assignment
  • the resulting twin name can be prefixed with the company name for clarity

This turns Digital Twins into the company-operator activation surface instead of a generic template browser.

Activating Venture Operators

For founder-directed autonomous company setups, the recommended starter set is:

  • Company Planner
  • Founder Office Operator

Expanded operating team:

  • Growth Operator
  • Customer Ops Lead

These templates are intended to pair with the Venture operator kit workspace preset and the Mission Control strategic planner.

What Activation Creates

  • A new AgentRole record with the template's capabilities, personality, and system prompt
  • Optional persisted company assignment when activation happens in company context
  • Cognitive offload config embedded in the agent's soul JSON
  • Warnings if any recommended skills are not installed (non-blocking — the twin works without them)

What activation does not create:

  • an automation profile
  • heartbeat ownership
  • workflow-intelligence target ownership
  • memory distillation policy

Daily Operation

Once activated, a twin mainly operates as a role/persona surface plus an on-demand execution target. Always-on operator behavior is added only if you attach automation separately.

Optional Always-On Mode

If a twin-backed role also has an automation profile, it can participate in:

  • Heartbeat v3 review
  • Workflow Intelligence reflection and suggestions
  • core traces and learnings
  • Mission Control core-harness monitoring

When a twin is linked to a company, the product can also surface it as part of that company's operator set in:

  • Settings > Companies
  • Settings > Digital Twins
  • Mission Control

Example Software Engineer routines once a separate automation profile is attached:

TaskFrequencyWhat It Does
PR Review QueueEvery 60 minScans open PRs, builds prioritized review queue with risk ratings, flags stale PRs
Test Coverage ScanEvery 4 hoursChecks recent code changes for files lacking test coverage
Dependency HealthEvery 8 hoursRuns dependency check for vulnerabilities and outdated packages

Example Engineering Manager routines once a separate automation profile is attached:

TaskFrequencyWhat It Does
Team Status DigestEvery 2 hoursAggregates team member activity into a status summary
Sprint Health CheckEvery 4 hoursMonitors sprint progress, flags at-risk items, surfaces blockers
Cross-Team Dependency ScanEvery 8 hoursTracks dependencies between teams, flags blockers early

Example VP of Engineering routines once a separate automation profile is attached:

TaskFrequencyWhat It Does
Executive BriefEvery 8 hoursCompiles org-level metrics: velocity, quality, incidents
Strategic Risk ScanEvery 12 hoursSurfaces risks across teams: attrition signals, deadline slippage, tech debt accumulation

Reactive Mode (On-Demand)

Assign tasks directly to a twin via Mission Control or @mentions:

  • Drag a task onto the twin's column in the Kanban board
  • @mention the twin: @sw-engineer-twin summarize what changed in the auth module this week
  • Use a bundled skill: @twin prepare meeting brief for tomorrow's architecture review

Bundled Skills

Four skills ship with the Digital Twin system:

SkillIDPurpose
Status Reporttwin-status-reportGenerate status reports from recent activity, git history, and task data
PR Triagetwin-pr-triageScan open PRs, assess risk, build a prioritized review queue
Meeting Preptwin-meeting-prepPrepare meeting briefs with context, open items, and talking points
Decision Preptwin-decision-prepAssemble data, options, and trade-offs for pending decisions

Enterprise Scenarios

Individual Contributor (Software Engineer)

Morning routine:

  • Twin already has a PR review queue ready from the overnight scan, prioritized by risk and staleness
  • Before standup: twin runs twin-status-report — produces a summary from git history and completed tasks

During the day:

  • Before a meeting: twin runs twin-meeting-prep — assembles relevant context, open items, and talking points
  • When a dependency has a CVE: twin flags it in the next dependency health check

Result: Engineer stays in code. Twin handles the information-gathering that would otherwise fragment focus.

Engineering Manager

Morning routine:

  • Twin has a team status digest ready — who's working on what, who's blocked, what shipped yesterday
  • Before 1-on-1s: twin prepared per-person notes (recent work, accomplishments, open items)

Weekly:

  • Sprint health check surfaces at-risk items before they become problems
  • Cross-team dependency scan flags blockers early

Result: Manager focuses on people and unblocking. Twin handles data aggregation and status compilation.

Product Manager

Morning routine:

  • Twin triaged overnight feature requests and bug reports by priority and theme
  • Competitive landscape changes surfaced from monitored sources

Before sprint planning:

  • Twin prepared a decision package for the top 3 prioritization trade-offs
  • Customer feedback synthesized by feature area

Result: PM focuses on stakeholder alignment and strategy. Twin handles the information triage.

Technical Director / VP

Weekly:

  • Executive brief with org-level metrics (velocity trends, quality metrics, incident rates)
  • Architecture decision records prepared with options, trade-offs, and recommendations

Quarterly:

  • OKR progress tracking across all teams
  • Technology radar updates (what's working, what's struggling, what to watch)

Result: Leadership focuses on strategy and decisions. Twin handles the reporting and analysis.

Scaling Across an Organization

For a team of 50 engineers, 5 managers, 2 directors, and 1 VP:

  1. Activate 50 Software Engineer twins — each named for the person (e.g., "Sarah's Twin")
  2. Activate 5 Engineering Manager twins
  3. Activate 2 Technical Director twins
  4. Activate 1 VP of Engineering twin

Each twin learns over time through the existing playbook and relationship memory systems. Corrections, preferences, and successful approaches get captured and reinforced. The knowledge graph builds organizational context (who owns what, cross-team dependencies) that all twins can reference.


Channel Integration

Since CoWork OS supports 17 messaging channels, twins can be reached from anywhere:

ChannelExample
Slack/inbox @twin-engineering-manager prepare 1-on-1 notes for tomorrow
Teams@twin-sw-engineer summarize auth module changes this week
EmailForward a thread to the twin for context extraction and summarization
Discord!ask @twin-devops check deployment pipeline status

Heartbeat results can be delivered to channels — e.g., post the daily PR triage to #engineering-reviews.


Customization

At Activation Time

  • Name: Any display name for the twin
  • Role prompt and identity
  • Recommended skills
  • Company linkage, when relevant
  • All other role properties (capabilities, autonomy, personality) come from the template defaults

After Activation

The twin is a standard AgentRole — all properties can be edited via the Agent Role Editor in Mission Control:

  • Change capabilities, autonomy level, or personality
  • Edit the system prompt or soul configuration
  • Modify skills and role-specific soul metadata
  • Attach automation separately in Mission Control if the role should become always-on

Adding Custom Templates

Templates are JSON files in resources/persona-templates/. To add a custom template:

  1. Create a JSON file following the PersonaTemplate schema
  2. Place it in the persona templates directory
  3. Restart CoWork OS — the template appears in the gallery

Technical Details

Architecture

PersonaTemplate (JSON)
    ↓ activate()
AgentRole (SQLite)
    ↓ optional attach
AutomationProfile (SQLite)
    ↓
Workflow Intelligence
    ↓
Mission Control + Task system + Run records

Where Data Lives

DataLocation
Template definitionsresources/persona-templates/*.json
Bundled skillsresources/skills/twin-*.json
Activated twin configagent_roles table (SQLite)
Optional automation linkageautomation_profiles and core runtime tables
Task resultsStandard task records in SQLite

IPC Channels

ChannelPurpose
personaTemplate:listList all templates with optional filter
personaTemplate:getGet a single template by ID
personaTemplate:activateCreate an AgentRole from a template
personaTemplate:previewPreview what activation will create
personaTemplate:getCategoriesGet category list with counts

Service

PersonaTemplateService follows the same pattern as CustomSkillLoader:

  • Loads JSON from resources/persona-templates/ (dev: process.cwd(), prod: process.resourcesPath)
  • No new twin-specific database tables — templates instantiate into existing AgentRole records
  • Skills are referenced by ID, not embedded — missing skills produce warnings, not errors

Plugin Pack Integration

Digital twins are deeply integrated with the Plugin Pack system. Seven of the ten bundled packs link directly to a persona template, and packs can be installed, managed, and distributed through the Plugin Store.

Plugin Store

The in-app Plugin Store (accessible via the "+" button in the Customize panel) provides:

  • Browse & install packs from the remote registry that include linked digital twins
  • Install from Git — clone a community pack that bundles a twin configuration
  • Create new packs — scaffold a custom pack that links to any existing persona template

Admin Policies

Organization admins can control twin-related packs via Admin Policies:

  • Require specific packs (e.g., ensure all engineers have the Engineering pack with its Software Engineer twin)
  • Block packs that aren't approved for the organization
  • Limit agent resources — cap automation profile usage and concurrent agents

See Plugin Packs and Admin Policies for details.


Further Reading

For detailed persona descriptions, day-in-the-life scenarios, and expanded coverage of other job areas (design, security, sales, HR, finance, legal, marketing, R&D, executive leadership, and more), see the Digital Twin Personas Comprehensive Guide.

For the full founder-operated autonomous-company workflow, see Zero-Human Company Operations.


Quick Reference

ActionHow
Open Digital Twin gallerySettings > Digital Twins or Mission Control > Add Digital Twin
Open company-aware twin creationSettings > Companies > Open Digital Twins
Activate a templateClick template card > customize > Create Digital Twin
Create company-linked operatorOpen Digital Twins from a company context, then activate a venture/operator template
Check twin task outputView completed tasks in Mission Control
Assign work to a twinDrag task to twin's column, or @mention the twin
Edit twin after activationDouble-click the twin in Mission Control agents panel
Make the twin always-onAttach a separate automation profile after activation
Adjust twin role metadataEdit agent > soul JSON and role settings
Review heartbeat behaviorOpen Heartbeat v3
Use a twin skill on-demand@mention twin + skill prompt (e.g., "prepare meeting brief for X")