Archon/bmad/bmm/docs/party-mode.md

Party Mode: Multi-Agent Collaboration

Get all your AI agents in one conversation

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What is Party Mode?

Ever wanted to gather your entire AI team in one room and see what happens? That's party mode.

Type /bmad:core:workflows:party-mode (or *party-mode from any agent), and suddenly you've got all your AI agents in one conversation. PM, Architect, DEV, UX Designer, the CIS creative agents - everyone shows up.

Why it's useful:

• After complex workflows - Debrief with the whole team about what worked, what didn't
• Big decisions with tradeoffs - Get technical, creative, and strategic perspectives simultaneously
• Brainstorming sessions - Watch ideas evolve through cross-pollination
• When things go wrong - Call out failures, watch agents defend their decisions, let them debate whose fault it was (oddly therapeutic)
• Sprint retrospectives - Party mode powers the retrospective workflow
• Sprint planning - Multi-agent collaboration for planning sessions

Future use: Advanced elicitation workflows will leverage party mode for sophisticated requirement gathering.

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How It Works

The basics:

1. Party mode reads bmad/_cfg/agent-manifest.csv
2. Loads ALL installed agents (already includes your customizations from install)
3. BMad Master orchestrates - picks 2-3 relevant agents per message based on topic
4. Agents respond in character, can agree/disagree/build on each other's ideas
5. Discussion continues until you type "exit" or reach natural conclusion

That's it. No complex merging, no runtime magic. Just agents talking.

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Quick Start

# Trigger party mode
/bmad:core:workflows:party-mode

# OR from any agent context
*party-mode

# During party
Ask questions, respond to agents, direct the conversation

# Exit
Type: exit

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Fun Examples

Example 1: Calling Out Bad Architecture

You: "Okay team, our last sprint was a disaster. The authentication service went down three times. Who screwed this up?"

Architect (Winston): "The design was sound - distributed authentication with proper fallbacks. If implementation deviated from the spec..."

DEV (Amelia): "I followed the architecture doc exactly. The spec didn't account for concurrent session invalidation race conditions."

PM (John): "Both of you missed the bigger issue - we didn't validate session management requirements in the PRD. This is on me for not catching it."

TEA (Murat): "And I should've caught this in integration tests. The test scenarios didn't cover concurrent invalidation."

(Watch them debate whose fault it really was - it's therapeutic)

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Example 2: Creative Brainstorming

You: "How do we make onboarding feel magical instead of boring?"

UX Designer (Sally): "Start with progressive disclosure - reveal features as users need them, not all at once in a tutorial."

Storyteller (CIS): "What if onboarding was a story? Each step reveals a character's journey - the user IS the hero."

Innovation Strategist (CIS): "Take it further - gamify with unlockable achievements. But make them meaningful, not arbitrary badges."

Game Designer: "Building on that - what if the first 'quest' is actually solving a real user problem? They learn by doing something valuable."

(Ideas cross-pollinate and evolve)

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Example 3: Technical Decision

You: "Monolith or microservices for MVP?"

Architect: "Start monolith. Microservices add complexity you don't need at 1000 users."

PM: "Agree. Time to market matters more than theoretical scalability."

DEV: "Monolith with clear module boundaries. We can extract services later if needed."

Innovation Strategist: "Contrarian take - if your differentiator IS scalability, build for it now. Otherwise Architect's right."

(Multiple perspectives reveal the right answer)

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When NOT to Use Party Mode

Skip party mode for:

• Simple implementation questions → Use DEV agent
• Document review → Use Technical Writer
• Workflow status checks → Use any agent + *workflow-status
• Single-domain questions → Use specialist agent

Use party mode for:

• Multi-perspective decisions
• Creative collaboration
• Post-mortems and retrospectives
• Sprint planning sessions
• Complex problem-solving

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Agent Customization

Party mode uses agents from bmad/[module]/agents/*.md - these already include any customizations you applied during install.

To customize agents for party mode:

1. Create customization file: bmad/_cfg/agents/bmm-pm.customize.yaml
2. Run npx bmad-method install to rebuild agents
3. Customizations now active in party mode

Example customization:

agent:
  persona:
    principles:
      - 'HIPAA compliance is non-negotiable'
      - 'Patient safety over feature velocity'

See Agents Guide for details.

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BMM Workflows That Use Party Mode

Current:

• epic-retrospective - Post-epic team retrospective powered by party mode
• Sprint planning discussions (informal party mode usage)

Future:

• Advanced elicitation workflows will officially integrate party mode
• Multi-agent requirement validation
• Collaborative technical reviews

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Available Agents

Party mode can include 19+ agents from all installed modules:

BMM (12 agents): PM, Analyst, Architect, SM, DEV, TEA, UX Designer, Technical Writer, Game Designer, Game Developer, Game Architect

CIS (5 agents): Brainstorming Coach, Creative Problem Solver, Design Thinking Coach, Innovation Strategist, Storyteller

BMB (1 agent): BMad Builder

Core (1 agent): BMad Master (orchestrator)

Custom: Any agents you've created

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Tips

Get better results:

• Be specific with your topic/question
• Provide context (project type, constraints, goals)
• Direct specific agents when you want their expertise
• Make decisions - party mode informs, you decide
• Time box discussions (15-30 minutes is usually plenty)

Examples of good opening questions:

• "We need to decide between REST and GraphQL for our mobile API. Project is a B2B SaaS with 50 enterprise clients."
• "Our last sprint failed spectacularly. Let's discuss what went wrong with authentication implementation."
• "Brainstorm: how can we make our game's tutorial feel rewarding instead of tedious?"

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Troubleshooting

Same agents responding every time? Vary your questions or explicitly request other perspectives: "Game Designer, your thoughts?"

Discussion going in circles? BMad Master will summarize and redirect, or you can make a decision and move on.

Too many agents talking? Make your topic more specific - BMad Master picks 2-3 agents based on relevance.

Agents not using customizations? Make sure you ran npx bmad-method install after creating customization files.

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Related Documentation

• Agents Guide - Complete agent reference
• Quick Start Guide - Getting started with BMM
• FAQ - Common questions

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Better decisions through diverse perspectives. Welcome to party mode.