Organizations, members and roles

An organization is your team's home in DevSpec: it holds your projects, the people who work on them, and one shared balance that pays for the work. Each person has an organization role, which decides how much of the organization they can see, and a role on each project, which decides what they can do there.

Settings → Organization manages the organization you're working in now, while Settings → Organizations (under You) lists every organization you belong to.

Create an organization

You get your first organization when you sign up. It starts with $15 in its balance so you can try DevSpec straight away, and you're its Owner. If you signed up from a DevSpec invitation that came with money, that amount replaces the $15 rather than adding to it.

To create another organization, go to Settings → Organizations → Create an organization. The first step explains that a new organization has its own members, billing and balance, and that you pay for the work done in it. If you only want another project and you're an Owner or Admin where you are, Create a project instead takes you there, sharing that organization's members and balance. Otherwise you name the new organization, become its Owner, and add funds.

A new organization after your first one starts at $0. It's ready as soon as it has money in its balance: add funds during creation, or later from Settings → Billing. Until then, nobody can create projects in it.

There are no seats, no trials and no billing plans to choose. Every organization pays for what it uses from its own balance. See Billing, usage and limits.

Organization roles

Everyone in an organization has one of four organization roles:

Only Owners and Admins create projects, and the organization needs money in its balance to do so. Only an Owner can delete a project.

An organization always keeps at least one Owner. It can have more than one, and an Owner can leave only when another Owner remains.

What each role means opens the full table of what every role can do. You'll find it on the invite form, on every Members page, and in Settings → Organizations.

Project roles, and how they fit with organization roles

Every person on a project also has a project role:

• Viewer: sees everything and takes part in the conversation. Can't change the record.
• Reviewed Contributor: proposes new work and knowledge for a Maintainer to accept. Can take part in conversations and start an experiment to explore work separately.
• Contributor: adds tasks, memories, artifacts and work directly. Changes to agreed work need approval; knowledge edits depend on whose decision they affect.
• Maintainer: accepts proposals and manages the project, including its members. Changing another Maintainer's protected decision needs that person's OK or the project lead's.

A Contributor can edit their own and other Contributors' knowledge directly, but an edit to a Maintainer's decision waits for approval. Removing or undoing someone else's decision needs the appropriate OK. The project lead is a named Maintainer who can settle changes to other Maintainers' decisions. See Review and The project lead.

The two roles combine like this:

• Owners and Admins are Maintainers on every project in the organization, including Invite only projects.
• Members are Contributors on every project marked Available to everyone, without being added. On an Invite only project, a Member has access only if someone adds them.
• Guests have only the projects they were added to, with the role they were given there.

A role given to someone on a specific project takes the place of the Contributor default, so you can make a Member a Viewer on one project and a Maintainer on another. The project's Members page shows each person's project role and, for Guests, that their access is limited to the projects they were added to.

Invite people

One form brings people into the organization and onto projects together. Open it with Invite someone from a project's Members page, or from Settings → Organization → Members.

1. Email addresses. Paste as many as you like; commas, spaces or new lines all work. Anything that isn't an address is flagged and skipped.
2. How much of the organization can they see? Member or Guest. Owner and Admin aren't invitation roles: once someone has joined, an Owner or Admin changes their role on the Members page.
3. Which projects, and what can they do there? Pick a project and a role (Maintainer, Contributor, Reviewed Contributor or Viewer), and Add another project for more. A Guest needs at least one project; a Member can have none for now.

After you send, each address gets one line saying what happened:

• Anyone not yet in your organization gets an invitation, including people who already have a DevSpec account. They get one email, and when they accept they join with the organization role and project roles you chose.
• Someone already in your organization is added to the projects straight away, with no email, and sees it in their notification bell.
• Someone already on those projects needs nothing.

Pending invitations are listed on Settings → Organization → Members under Pending invitations, where you can Withdraw one.

Owners and Admins can invite people as Members or Guests. A project Maintainer who isn't an Owner or Admin can invite people to their own project as Guests.

Manage members

Settings → Organization → Members lists everyone in the organization with their organization role, the projects they're on and their role on each, and the invitations still waiting to be accepted. Members can see the list; only Owners and Admins can change it.

From the menu beside a person, an Owner or Admin can:

• change their organization role with Make Owner, Make Admin, Make Member or Make Guest
• Add to a project… with a project role
• Remove from organization, which takes away their access to every project straight away and disconnects any agent they run on those projects

A few rules keep the organization safe. An Admin can't change or remove an Owner, and only an Owner can make someone an Owner. Nobody changes their own role; ask another Owner or Admin. The last Owner can't be removed or demoted.

Each person's Dev, reading aloud and voice input switches and their allowance are on Settings → Usage & limits → People. See Billing, usage and limits.

Leave an organization

When you leave an organization, you lose access to every project in it straight away, and any agent you run on those projects is disconnected. An Owner or Admin can invite you back later.

• Everyone can leave from Settings → Organizations (your personal list) with Leave.
• Owners, Admins and Members can also leave from Settings → Organization → Your membership → Leave organization.
• Guests leave from Settings → Organizations, because Guests don't see the organization's own settings.

The organization's only Owner can't leave. Transfer ownership first, make someone else an Owner too, or delete the organization.

Transfer ownership or add another Owner

The Owner hands the organization to someone else from Settings → Organization → Your membership → Transfer ownership. Choose the new owner and select Make them the Owner. They become the Owner and you become an Admin. They can transfer it back later.

To share ownership without stepping down, an Owner opens Settings → Organization → Members and chooses Make Owner for someone. The organization then has two Owners, and either can leave, transfer or delete.

Only an Owner can transfer ownership or make someone an Owner.

If your organization has no Owner

DevSpec prevents an organization from losing its last Owner: the last Owner can't leave, be removed or be demoted, and can't close their account while other people are in the organization. If you ever need help recovering ownership of an organization, contact support.

Who can see billing, usage and spend

Money in an organization is visible by role:

• Owners and Admins see everything on Settings → Billing: the balance, Add funds, the saved card, auto top-up, the billing contact and Transactions. They also see Settings → Usage & limits, with each person's Dev, reading aloud and voice input switches and allowance, each project's limit and Pause, and Spend.
• Members see the balance on Settings → Billing. They can't add funds, change the card, or see transactions, spend or Usage & limits.
• Guests see no billing at all.

Everyone can see their own Dev & voice allowance in each organization on Settings → Organizations. See Billing, usage and limits.

Organization settings at a glance

The Organization group in Settings shows the organization you're working in. Guests don't see it.

• Organization: the name and logo, Your membership (your role, Leave organization, and Transfer ownership for the Owner), the organization's data export and Danger zone (Owner only).
• Members: everyone in the organization, their roles and projects, pending invitations, and Invite someone (Owners and Admins).
• Projects: every project in the organization and who leads it. Owners and Admins can change a project's lead here without being on the project. See The project lead.
• Billing: the balance, and for Owners and Admins, adding funds, the card, auto top-up and the billing contact.
• Usage & limits (Owners and Admins): how the balance may be used, and where it's going.
• Connections: GitHub access for the whole organization, so every project it owns can use the repositories you allow. See Repositories and GitHub.
• Analytics: the organization's project analytics. See Analytics.

Exporting the Organization's Data

The Owner can take a copy of everything the organization owns from Settings → Organization. Select Request the organization's export.

The export is a zip with every project and repository, tasks with their activity and notes, memories, documents and uploaded files, every room with its messages and attachments, discussion points, plans, polls, goals, features, automations, members and roles, and every payment and charge.

DevSpec prepares it in the background, so you can leave the page. You're notified when it's ready, and the download works for 7 days. A large export arrives as numbered parts, each a complete zip. When it expires, request a new one.

For a copy of only your own data, use Settings → Privacy & data. See Your settings.

Deleting the Organization

The Owner deletes the organization from Settings → Organization → Danger zone → Delete, typing its name to confirm. Before you confirm, DevSpec shows what will be removed: the number of projects, rooms and files, and how many team members lose access.

Deleting the organization removes its projects, rooms, files and search indexes for everyone in it, and it can't be undone. Its payment history is kept. The remaining balance is closed and not refunded, and the confirmation shows the amount. Spend or use what you need first; see Billing, usage and limits.

Your only organization can't be deleted on its own. To remove it, close your account from Settings → Privacy & data; a workspace only you own is deleted with your account. See Your settings.