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The CTO is usable in minutes. First-run setup is one card — you pick a personality and a work style and it’s ready to chat. A capable model and Linear layer in afterward, only when you need them.

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First run

The first time you open the CTO tab, a single setup card asks for a personality preset and a work style. A name is optional. Everything else is deferred to Settings.
1

Pick a personality

Choose a preset — strategic, professional, hands-on, casual, minimal, or custom. Custom lets you write your own overlay. This sets the CTO’s tone; its core doctrine is fixed by ADE and not editable.
2

Set a work style

Choose how much detail you want, how proactive the CTO should be, and how readily it escalates decisions to you. These are three quick toggles on the same card.
3

Name it (optional)

Give the CTO a name, or leave it as “CTO”.
4

Choose a model (optional)

In CTO Settings, set the provider, model, and reasoning effort. The CTO reasons across the whole project, so favor a capable model over a fast one. Until you pick one, the CTO uses the project’s default model.
5

Connect Linear (optional)

Connect it when you want the CTO to browse and update issues from the thread. See Linear.
Setup finishes without a model choice or Linear — those connect later. The CTO is meant to be a daily chat surface first.

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Personality presets

The preset shapes the CTO’s communication style. The underlying operator doctrine and capability set are owned by ADE and stay fixed across presets — you’re choosing tone, not rewriting the agent.

Strategic

Big-picture framing and trade-offs.

Executive

Calm, structured, leadership-oriented.

Hands-on

Pragmatic and execution-focused.

Collaborative

Warm, conversational, easy to work with.

Concise

Low-noise, direct replies.

Custom

Write your own personality overlay.
You can re-run setup any time from CTO → Settings → Re-run setup, and edit the persona, work style, and model from Settings without resetting anything.

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First useful prompts

Lead with planning and summarization — that’s where the CTO earns its keep.
Ask the CTO to remember decisions as you make them — it keeps durable memory across sessions and model switches, so you don’t have to restate context next time.

CTO overview

What the CTO is and when to reach for it.

Linear

Connect Linear so the CTO can browse and update issues.