How

Explore the codebase to answer "how does X work?" questions. Produce architectural explanations at the level of a senior engineer onboarding onto a subsystem, enough to build a working mental model, not so much that it reads like annotated source code.

Every spawn below is a delegate_task with a self-contained brief; the child gets only the brief, never this conversation. Each brief says it is read-only: inspect only, no writes, no git commands. Resolve each role's model from kickoff.yaml roles via orchestrator_capabilities. Never hardcode a slug. If the role line is missing, run kickoff-setup or use the parent's model.

Step 1. Assess Complexity

If the scope is ambiguous, state your interpretation and explore. The user can redirect.

• Simple (a single module, a small utility, a narrow question such as "how does function X work"): no explorers. One explainer explores and explains in a single pass. Go to Step 2b.
• Complex (a subsystem spanning multiple files or services, a cross-cutting feature, a full architectural overview): spawn parallel explorers first, then hand off to the explainer. Go to Step 2a.

When in doubt, take the simple path.

Step 2a. Explore (complex questions only)

Decompose the question into 2 to 4 exploration angles, each a distinct slice of the subsystem. Spawn all explorers in a single message, mode: "async", model from the how explorer role.