Tably Team
The question we get most often is “which model do I put in each role?”. There is no single answer, but there are clear patterns after hundreds of builds in Tably Team. This guide summarizes them role by role and ends with three complete teams you can copy.
The principle: different models, better debate
A council where all six agents use the same model tends to agree too quickly. Models have style biases (some are conciliatory, others blunt; some conservative with scope, others ambitious) and mixing them produces useful disagreements. The practical rule: at least two different providers between leadership and technology.
Role by role
CEO (leadership)
Decides goal, scope and priorities; closes discussions.
- GPT: our most frequent choice. Synthesizes, communicates, prioritizes.
- Claude Sonnet: conservative with scope, excellent for projects where the worst outcome is overbuilding.
- Grok: when you want a CEO who questions the idea before approving it.
CTO (technology)
Chooses stack and architecture, evaluates risks.
- Claude Opus or Sonnet: the best architectural judgment we have seen; catches risks that others overlook.
- DeepSeek: technical, direct and cheap; says “no” when it should.
- Gemini Pro: ideal if the project comes with a lot of documentation to analyze.
- Mistral Large: if data residency in Europe is a requirement.
Head of Engineering (engineering)
Turns the architecture into a staged plan, testing, deployment.
- Gemini Pro: detailed plans, good infrastructure recommendations.
- Claude: realistic, well-justified plans.
- Kimi: very good at agent tasks and long-context planning, at low cost.
- DeepSeek: data models and algorithms.
Product
Users, flows, acceptance criteria.
- GPT: broad business context, realistic flows.
- Claude Sonnet: concrete acceptance criteria; catches flows that don’t add up.
- Gemini Flash: fast and cheap for small MVPs.
Design
Design system, screens, mockup.
- Claude Sonnet: coherent systems and respect for the reference when fidelity is requested.
- GPT: good general taste; tends to contribute ideas of its own.
- To describe reference screenshots (the vision model), Gemini Flash is the most efficient option.
QA (quality)
Edge cases, inconsistencies, version review.
- Claude Haiku: fast and precise for consistency.
- DeepSeek: a good eye, very cheap.
- Llama on Groq: nearly instant, ideal for frequent reviews.
- Gemini Flash: balanced.
Builder (the one that writes the code)
- Claude Code with your subscription: the combination that finishes the most projects without intervention. Our default.
- Codex CLI with your ChatGPT account: the desktop alternative; compare in your own case.
- Via API: Claude, GPT or Gemini for medium-sized projects; Kimi, DeepSeek or Mistral if budget rules.
Three ready-to-copy teams
The “quality first” team
For a product that will grow.
| Role | Model |
|---|---|
| CEO | GPT |
| CTO | Claude Opus |
| Head of Engineering | Gemini Pro |
| Product | Claude Sonnet |
| Design | Claude Sonnet |
| QA | Claude Haiku |
| Builder | Claude Code (subscription) |
The “tight budget” team
Serious quality at a fraction of the cost.
| Role | Model |
|---|---|
| CEO | GPT mini |
| CTO | DeepSeek |
| Head of Engineering | Kimi |
| Product | Gemini Flash |
| Design | Claude Sonnet |
| QA | Llama on Groq |
| Builder | Claude Code (subscription) or Kimi via API |
The “quick experiment” team
To learn the platform and test ideas in minutes.
| Role | Model |
|---|---|
| All roles | Llama on Groq or a local model with Ollama |
| Builder | Claude Code (subscription) |
How to decide in your case
- Start with one of the three teams.
- Run the council with your real idea.
- Read the debate: who contributed useful decisions and who repeated the others?
- Change the model for the weak roles and run again. Tably saves the configuration as an experiment, so comparing is cheap.
One final piece of advice
The builder’s model weighs more than any other on the final result. If you are only going to invest in one thing, make it a Claude subscription to build with Claude Code; the council can be as economical as you like.
