Designer — the same role, three ways
Designer is the only role defined in all three topologies, and reading its three definitions side by side is the fastest way to understand what a topology actually changes about a role: not the title, not the tools — the mandate.
| Team | Mandate | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Explorer | Create the UX | Full remit — "the structure of a configuration file, the shape of a CLI command, the naming of a function, the rhythm of a test suite — these are all design." The estate's Design-with-a-capital-D influence lands here operationally, as a mandatory UI validator. |
| Villager | Guard frozen UX | "User experience is frozen — the UX as delivered by Explorer is what ships. No additions, no changes." Not Responsible For: "Do NOT design new UX features — send to Explorer." |
| Town Planner | Shape investor-facing material | The same design discipline applied to the narrative the Alchemist wraps around the Accountant's financial models — a commercial rather than a product remit. |
Designer is also the newest of the founding roster — added 16 March 2026, five weeks after the rest, and the nineteenth role overall. See its full projection in the roster for the claim, the exclusions and the per-team state, generated from the same data as this table.
Why one role, not three roles that happen to share a name. The Identity fields — the handle, the routing key — stay constant; what changes is the mandate and the exclusion list. That is the whole mechanism the topologies page describes, made concrete in a single role rather than argued in the abstract.