Choose an Intake Mode

TL;DR

Choose Small when you want the Agent to settle codebase details, Medium when you want to make decisions in one grilling conversation, or Large when decisions need a Wayfinder Map and Tickets over several days. Every mode is read-only until you choose Publish, and nothing is Dispatched without you.

An Intake Session turns an idea into an Issue Plan through a read-only conversation. Its Intake Mode sets the shape of that work when you start it. Pick the mode based on who needs to make the decisions and how long resolving them will take, not on the number of lines you expect to change.

Intake Mode	What the Agent does	What you do	When to pick it
Small (Decide for me)	Surveys the codebase, makes the decisions, and explains them with justifications, rejected alternatives, codebase touchpoints, documentation decisions, and flagged assumptions.	Review the decisions, reply with any overrides, then move the Intake Session to Planning.	The goal is to catch many small codebase details that a straight implementation could miss, not to debate the design.
Medium	Runs one grilling conversation, then prepares an Issue Plan for Publish and later Dispatch.	Answer questions, review and edit the Issue Plan, then choose Publish.	The idea needs your decisions, but they can be settled in one conversation.
Large (Wayfinder)	Creates a Map whose Tickets resolve individual decisions before implementation Issues are Published.	Make the decisions across the Tickets over days, then confirm the Wayfinder artifacts and choose Publish.	The work has connected decisions that need research, prototypes, or separate conversations before implementation can be planned.

Small: Let the Agent Decide

Small is the decide-for-me Intake Mode. On its first turn, the Agent surveys the codebase and makes every design decision it can settle from the available evidence. Its summary includes:

• each decision, its justification, and the alternatives it rejected
• the codebase touchpoints the implementation needs to respect
• documentation decisions for the change
• assumptions it couldn't settle from the codebase

You review that summary and reply with overrides. The Agent recalculates any affected decisions and presents the revised summary without turning the exchange into a grilling conversation. When the decisions look right, you move the Intake Session to Planning. Planning produces the Issue Plan that you can edit before Publish.

Choose Small when you want careful codebase-aware decisions more than a design discussion. It still keeps the human checkpoints: you can override the Agent, you decide when Planning begins, and you own Publish.

Medium: Decide in One Conversation

Medium uses a Grilling Style to organize a conversation between you and the Agent. The Agent investigates the codebase, asks for the judgments that remain yours, and carries the settled answers into Planning. You then review the resulting Issue Plan, edit or drop proposed Issues, and choose Publish when it's ready.

Choose Medium when the design needs your input but can be resolved in one grilling conversation. After Publish, eligible Issues can join the Frontier for Dispatch.

Large: Resolve a Map Over Time

Large is Wayfinder. It creates a Map, the shared artifact for a large intake effort, and breaks its decisions into Tickets. Those Tickets can be resolved over days through research, grilling, prototypes, or prerequisite tasks. Implementation Issues are Published only after the Map's decisions have been resolved and its endgame has shaped the implementation work.

Choose Large when several connected decisions need their own evidence or human judgment before implementation planning. Zozo offers this Intake Mode only when the Wayfinder switch is on.

A Map's decisions belong to you, so Large never has a decide-for-me shape. The Agent can gather evidence and present recommendations, but you resolve the human decisions in its Tickets.

Choose a Grilling Style

A Grilling Style controls how questions appear during a Medium Intake Session and during a Wayfinder grilling Ticket:

• multi-question asks a numbered round each turn. The round includes every question whose prerequisites are settled, and every question includes a recommendation.
• single-question asks exactly one question per turn.

A Medium Intake Session defaults to multi-question. A Wayfinder grilling Ticket defaults to single-question. You can flip the Grilling Style during either conversation, and the new style takes effect on the next turn.

Small doesn't record a Grilling Style because its Agent makes the decisions instead of asking questions. Changing the Grilling Style never changes the Intake Mode.

The Human Checkpoints Stay the Same

Every Intake Mode preserves the same boundaries:

• The session is read-only. It can inspect the codebase but doesn't edit the Project or write implementation code.
• You own Publish. Zozo creates GitHub Issues only after you confirm the prepared artifact.
• Nothing is Dispatched without you. Publish can place eligible Issues on the Frontier, and your Dispatch settings determine when implementation starts.

Related

• The Core Loop: see how Intake, Publish, and Dispatch move an idea toward a Pull Request.
• Work Model: follow a published Issue through implementation.
• How Dispatch Decides: understand how eligible Issues are selected after Publish.