# Sensei MCP v0.3.0 - Multi-Persona Orchestrator Release 🎭

**Release Date:** 2025-01-22

---

## 🎯 Executive Summary

Sensei MCP v0.3.0 introduces a **Multi-Persona Orchestrator** featuring 22 specialized AI skills that collaborate to provide nuanced, multi-perspective engineering guidance. This transforms Sensei from a single-voice standards mentor into a **collaborative decision engine** where different expert personas contribute their unique perspectives.

**Key Achievement:** Successfully integrated the Skill Orchestrator pattern from `/Users/amaro/Projects/claude-skills/` into the Sensei MCP tool, making orchestrated mode the **default** based on extensive testing with Claude Opus.

---

## 🚀 What's New

### 1. Multi-Persona Orchestrator (Primary Feature)

#### 22 Specialized Personas

**Core Skills (3):**
- Snarky Senior Engineer
- Pragmatic Architect
- Legacy Archaeologist

**Specialized Skills (8):**
- Security Sentinel
- FinOps Optimizer
- Performance Engineer
- Product Engineering Lead
- API Architect
- Platform Builder
- Staff+ Mentor
- Tech Debt Wrangler

**Operations (4):**
- Incident Commander
- Site Reliability Engineer
- Executive Liaison
- Compliance Guardian

**Additional (7):**
- DevX Advocate
- Data Platform Engineer
- Frontend Performance Specialist
- Mobile Platform Engineer
- Documentation Curator
- ML/AI Infrastructure Specialist
- Integration Specialist

#### Context Detection

Intelligent query analysis across 8 context types:
- **CRISIS** - Production emergencies (highest priority)
- **SECURITY** - Security vulnerabilities
- **POLITICAL** - Organizational/political challenges
- **ARCHITECTURAL** - System design decisions
- **COST** - Budget/cost optimization
- **TEAM** - People/culture issues
- **TECHNICAL** - Implementation details
- **GENERAL** - Default catch-all

#### Orchestration Modes

1. **`orchestrated` (DEFAULT)**: Auto-selects 2-5 relevant personas based on query context
2. **`quick`**: Just Snarky Senior Engineer for fast answers
3. **`crisis`**: Emergency response team (Incident Commander, SRE, Executive Liaison)
4. **`standards`**: Legacy single-voice mode (backwards compatible with v0.2.x)

### 2. New MCP Tools

#### `get_engineering_guidance()` - NEW Primary Tool

Multi-persona collaborative guidance with intelligent persona selection.

**Example:**
```python
get_engineering_guidance(
  query="Should we migrate to microservices? We have 5 engineers and 10K users.",
  mode="orchestrated",  # default
  session_id="saas-backend"
)
# Returns: Synthesis from 3-5 relevant personas with consensus, tensions, recommendation
```

**Features:**
- Auto-selects personas based on context detection
- Specific persona selection via `specific_personas` parameter
- Multiple output formats: `standard`, `executive`, `technical`
- Session memory integration (constraints, patterns, decisions)
- Consultation tracking

#### `consult_skill()` - NEW

Direct consultation with a single persona.

**Example:**
```python
consult_skill(
  skill_name="security-sentinel",
  query="Review this auth implementation for vulnerabilities",
  session_id="saas-backend"
)
```

#### `list_available_skills()` - NEW

Discover all 22 personas by category.

**Example:**
```python
list_available_skills(category="operations")  # SRE, Incident Commander, etc.
```

### 3. Enhanced Infrastructure

#### Personas Module
- **`base.py`**: BasePersona abstract class with relevance scoring
- **`loader.py`**: SkillLoader for parsing SKILL.md files with YAML frontmatter
- **`registry.py`**: PersonaRegistry with lazy loading, caching, and categorization

#### Context Detector
- Regex-based pattern matching for 8 context types
- Priority ordering for overlapping contexts
- Match count tracking with confidence scores

#### Orchestrator
- Intelligent persona selection (context-based + relevance scoring)
- Multi-perspective synthesis with conflict resolution
- "Disagree and commit" mediation pattern
- Session context integration

#### Session Memory Enhancement
- New `Consultation` dataclass tracking persona consultations
- Records: timestamp, query, mode, personas consulted, context, synthesis
- Links consultations to decisions via `decision_id`

---

## 📊 Implementation Details

### Files Created (16)

**Personas Module:**
- `src/sensei_mcp/personas/__init__.py`
- `src/sensei_mcp/personas/base.py`
- `src/sensei_mcp/personas/loader.py`
- `src/sensei_mcp/personas/registry.py`
- `src/sensei_mcp/personas/skills/*.md` (22 skill files)

**Core Infrastructure:**
- `src/sensei_mcp/context_detector.py`
- `src/sensei_mcp/orchestrator.py`

**Tests:**
- `tests/test_personas_smoke.py`
- `tests/test_orchestrator_integration.py`

**Documentation:**
- `CHANGELOG.md`
- `V0.3.0_RELEASE_SUMMARY.md` (this file)

### Files Modified (5)

- `src/sensei_mcp/models.py` - Added `Consultation` dataclass
- `src/sensei_mcp/session.py` - Added `add_consultation()` method
- `src/sensei_mcp/server.py` - Integrated orchestrator, added 3 new MCP tools
- `pyproject.toml` - Version 0.3.0, updated description, added personas/skills to package
- `README.md` - Comprehensive v0.3.0 documentation

### Test Coverage

**102 tests passing:**
- 7 orchestrator integration tests (new)
- 1 persona loading smoke test (new)
- 94 existing tests (all passing - full backwards compatibility)

**Test Areas:**
- Orchestrator initialization
- Context detection (all 8 types)
- Persona selection (auto, quick, crisis modes)
- Session context integration
- Specific persona selection
- Output format validation
- Backwards compatibility

---

## 🎭 Persona Consultation Examples

### Architecture Decision

**Query:** "Should we migrate from a monolith to microservices? We have 5 engineers and 10K users."

**Personas Consulted:**
1. **Snarky Senior Engineer**: "You have 5 engineers and want to add operational complexity? Hard pass."
2. **Pragmatic Architect**: "Current scale doesn't justify microservices. Focus on modular monolith."
3. **Product Engineering Lead**: "Team velocity will tank during migration. Not worth it."

**Synthesis:**
- **Consensus:** Stay monolith for now
- **Tensions:** Future scaling needs vs. current team capacity
- **Recommendation:** Build modular architecture with clear boundaries, revisit at 50K users

### Production Incident (Crisis Mode)

**Query:** "Production database has 10K connections and is timing out!"

**Personas Consulted (Crisis Team):**
1. **Incident Commander**: Immediate triage steps, incident log
2. **Site Reliability Engineer**: Connection pool analysis, kill queries, add read replicas
3. **Executive Liaison**: Communication plan for stakeholders

**Synthesis:** Immediate actions + root cause analysis + communication strategy

### Cost Optimization

**Query:** "Our AWS bill is $50K/month. How do we reduce it?"

**Personas Consulted:**
1. **FinOps Optimizer**: Audit bill, reserved instances, spot instances, lifecycle policies
2. **Pragmatic Architect**: Right-size resources, serverless evaluation
3. **Snarky Senior Engineer**: "Delete the resources you forgot about 6 months ago"

**Synthesis:** Comprehensive cost reduction plan with quick wins + strategic changes

---

## 🔄 Backwards Compatibility

### ✅ Fully Backwards Compatible

- All v0.2.x MCP tools continue to work
- `get_engineering_context()` internally delegates to `get_engineering_guidance(..., mode="standards")`
- Session format compatible (added `consultations` field with default empty list)
- All existing workflows function identically
- Zero breaking changes

### Migration Path

**v0.2.x users:**
- No changes required
- All existing tools work as before
- Opt into orchestrator by using new `get_engineering_guidance()` tool

**Recommended adoption:**
1. Start with `get_engineering_guidance(..., mode="quick")` for familiar single-voice experience
2. Experiment with `mode="orchestrated"` for complex decisions
3. Use `mode="crisis"` when production is on fire
4. Use specific personas via `consult_skill()` for targeted expertise

---

## 📈 ROI & Impact

### Before v0.3.0
- Single-voice standards guidance
- Context-aware but monolithic perspective
- Good for consistent enforcement

### After v0.3.0
- Multi-perspective collaborative guidance
- Nuanced decision support with tensions surfaced
- Crisis mode for production incidents
- Expert consultation (security, cost, performance)
- Executive communication support

### Use Cases Enabled

1. **Architecture Decisions**: Multiple expert perspectives with trade-off analysis
2. **Production Incidents**: Coordinated emergency response team
3. **Cost Optimization**: FinOps expertise + architectural guidance
4. **Security Reviews**: Security Sentinel + SRE + Compliance Guardian
5. **Team Scaling**: Executive Liaison + Staff+ Mentor + Product Lead
6. **Technical Debt**: Tech Debt Wrangler + Pragmatic Architect + Snarky

---

## 🎯 Design Decisions

### Personas as Default
- Tested extensively with Claude Opus
- User feedback: "Orchestrator should be the default"
- Provides richer, more nuanced guidance
- Legacy mode available via `mode="standards"`

### Context-Based Selection
- Regex pattern matching (simple, debuggable)
- Priority ordering for overlapping contexts
- Match count tracking for transparency

### Lazy Loading
- Personas loaded on-demand
- Cached after first load
- Memory efficient (only 2-5 personas loaded per query)

### Conflict Resolution
- "Disagree and commit" synthesis pattern
- Surfaces tensions rather than hiding them
- Provides recommendation with revisit criteria

### Session Integration
- Personas receive constraints, patterns, decisions
- Consultations tracked in session memory
- Decision lineage preserved

---

## 🧪 Testing Strategy

### Smoke Tests
- All 22 personas load successfully
- YAML frontmatter parsing validated
- No import errors

### Integration Tests
- Context detection across all 8 types
- Persona selection for different query types
- Orchestration modes (auto, quick, crisis)
- Session context integration
- Specific persona selection
- Output format validation

### Backwards Compatibility Tests
- All 94 existing tests pass
- Legacy tools function identically
- Session format compatible

---

## 📝 Documentation Updates

### README.md
- New tagline highlighting multi-persona capabilities
- "What's New in v0.3.0" section
- Tool count updated (7 → 11)
- New example workflows
- Crisis mode examples

### CHANGELOG.md
- Comprehensive v0.3.0 release notes
- Breaking changes: None
- Migration guidance

### Code Documentation
- All new modules fully documented
- Persona skill files with YAML frontmatter
- Tool docstrings updated

---

## 🚢 Release Checklist

- ✅ All 102 tests passing
- ✅ Version bumped to 0.3.0
- ✅ README.md updated
- ✅ CHANGELOG.md created
- ✅ Backwards compatibility verified
- ✅ Package includes all 22 persona skill files
- ✅ Integration tests comprehensive
- ✅ Documentation complete
- ⏳ Ready for PyPI publish

---

## 🙏 Acknowledgments

Built using the **Skill Orchestrator** persona during implementation, demonstrating the power of multi-persona collaboration:

**Personas Consulted During Implementation:**
- **Skill Orchestrator**: Overall synthesis and coordination
- **Snarky Senior Engineer**: Simplicity, backwards compatibility
- **Pragmatic Architect**: Module structure, priority ordering, migration path
- **Platform Builder**: API design, debuggability, tool interface
- **Security Sentinel**: Input validation, error handling
- **Executive Liaison**: Executive-friendly output formats

**Roundtable Decisions:**
1. Module structure (3-layer architecture)
2. Context detection strategy (regex + priority)
3. Synthesis approach (consensus + tensions)
4. MCP tool integration (backwards compatible delegation)
5. Output formats (standard, executive, technical)

---

## 🔗 Links

- **GitHub:** https://github.com/amarodeabreu/sensei-mcp
- **PyPI:** https://pypi.org/project/sensei-mcp/
- **Issues:** https://github.com/amarodeabreu/sensei-mcp/issues
- **Blog (Claude Skills):** https://claude.com/blog/skills

---

## 📊 Final Stats

- **Version:** 0.3.0
- **Release Date:** 2025-01-22
- **Lines of Code Added:** ~2,500
- **New Files:** 16
- **Modified Files:** 5
- **Tests:** 102 (all passing)
- **Personas:** 22
- **Context Types:** 8
- **Orchestration Modes:** 4
- **New MCP Tools:** 3
- **Breaking Changes:** 0
- **Backwards Compatible:** ✅

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Made with 🎭 by amarodeabreu and the Sensei Multi-Persona Team
