Round Table
Round Table runs a multi-persona AI deliberation across a topic. Pick personas (Moderator, Devil's Advocate, Senior Developer, QA Lead, Product Owner, Designer, or your own), send a message, and each persona replies in turn before they deliberate with one another. Use it to debate decisions, stress-test plans, or run a "design review" without the meeting.
When to use a Round Table
- You're stuck between two designs and want a structured debate
- You want adversarial review (Devil's Advocate) before committing
- You need multiple specialist perspectives (QA, PM, designer) on a single artifact
- You're prototyping a tricky feature and want a pre-implementation gut-check
Configuration
When creating a round table:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Workspace | Repo context for the discussion |
| Branch | Optional branch checkout for the worktree |
| AI Provider | Which provider runs the personas |
| AI Model | Specific model |
| Personas | At least 1, max 10 |
| Owner-Private | Optional — only the creator sees this round table |
Personas
Pre-defined personas
| Persona | Role |
|---|---|
| Moderator | Keeps the discussion on track |
| Devil's Advocate | Challenges assumptions |
| Senior Developer | Architecture, maintainability, technical risk |
| QA Lead | Edge cases, test strategy |
| Product Owner | User value, scope, priorities |
| Designer | UX, IA, accessibility |
Custom personas
Create custom personas at the workspace level (e.g., "Security Auditor", "DevOps Lead"). Each persona can be enabled/disabled per workspace and is soft-deleted when removed (custom personas only).
Personas are snapshotted on first message — once a discussion starts, edits to the persona definition don't retroactively change the round table.
Manage Personas page
Use the dedicated Manage Personas page to create, edit, enable/disable, and soft-delete custom personas across all workspaces you have access to. The same page is where you toggle pre-defined personas on or off per workspace. Access is gated by the roundtables.manage_personas permission.
Turn flow
When you send a message, each enabled persona weighs in, the personas may then deliberate with one another, and the round table surfaces a few suggested next messages — phrased from your perspective — for you to continue with.
Concurrent sends to the same round table are blocked while a turn is in flight, so each turn completes before the next begins.
Turn trigger kinds
| Kind | Effect |
|---|---|
| Send Message | Standard user message → persona replies |
| Retry | Re-runs a failed turn |
| Vote | Calls a vote (see below) |
| Summary | Generates a fresh running summary |
Each turn has a status: Processing, Completed, or Failed.
Call a Vote
Trigger a structured vote among the personas:
- Question (1–500 chars)
- 2–6 unique options, or Yes/No preset
- Each persona casts one vote
- The tally is persisted as a vote-result message in the discussion
Use votes to force a decision when the discussion is going in circles.
Running summary
Generate a fresh summary at any point — Polygent runs a dedicated turn that produces a concise digest. The latest summary is highlighted, and a marker is added to the message stream so you can see when it was created.
Reactions
Add Pending reactions (Agree / Decline) to your own messages. They are bound to the user message at finalization on the next turn. Pending reactions can be removed before the next turn.
Drafts (no persistence)
While reading a round table, draft a ticket or plan from the discussion:
- Ticket Draft — opens the ticket creation modal, pre-filled
- Plan Draft — opens the plan creation modal, pre-filled
Drafts are not persisted — close the modal without saving and the draft is gone.
Linked artifacts
Tickets and plans created from a round table back-reference the discussion they came from, so you can trace every ticket or plan that originated from a round table.
Export
Export the full discussion as:
- TXT — plain text transcript
- Markdown — formatted for docs
Lifecycle
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active | Open and accepting turns |
| Completed | Closed |
| Hidden | Dismissed from the sidebar |
Statistics
A statistics panel shows per-round-table:
- Turns by status / by trigger
- Daily trend
- Top models
- Top users
Plus an audit trail with full turn history.
Worktree management
Each round table gets its own worktree, verified on startup and cleaned up if orphaned. Owner-Private round tables are inaccessible to other users.
Live updates
All connected viewers see real-time updates — new persona replies, vote tallies, summary generation, and status changes appear automatically without a page refresh.
Examples
Stress-test an architecture decision You're choosing between a message queue and direct API calls. Start a round table with Senior Developer, Devil's Advocate, and QA Lead, and post the two options. The Senior Developer weighs maintainability, the Devil's Advocate attacks each assumption, and the QA Lead raises failure modes. Call a Vote with the two options to force a decision, then create a Plan Draft from the discussion.
Pre-implementation design review Before building a new screen, run a round table with Designer, Product Owner, and Senior Developer against a mockup. You get UX, scope, and feasibility feedback in one pass — then convert the agreed direction into a ticket with one click.
Resolve a stuck debate A thread keeps going in circles. Generate a Running Summary to capture where things stand, then Call a Vote (Yes/No preset) to settle it. The tally is recorded in the discussion as a permanent decision record.
Add a domain specialist Create a custom Security Auditor persona at the workspace level, enable it, and include it in a round table reviewing an authentication change — its perspective is snapshotted into the discussion so later edits to the persona don't rewrite history.
Permissions
| Permission | Capability |
|---|---|
roundtables.create | Create new round tables |
roundtables.manage_personas | Add/edit/disable workspace personas |