Roo Code's Modes are specialized personas used to let the AI assistant adjust its behavior according to the current task. Each mode provides different capabilities, expertise, and access levels to help users accomplish specific goals.
Main capabilities:
- Task specialization: Get the exact type of assistance needed for the current task.
- Safety controls: Prevent accidental file modifications while focusing on planning or learning.
- Focused interaction: Receive responses optimized for the current activity.
- Workflow optimization: Seamlessly switch between planning, implementation, debugging, and learning.
How to use:
- There are four ways to switch modes:
- Dropdown menu: Click the selector to the left of the chat input box.
- Slash commands: Type /architect, /ask, /debug, /code, or /orchestrator at the beginning of a message, which switches to that mode and clears the input box.
- Toggle command/keyboard shortcut: Use the shortcut for your operating system; each press cycles through the available modes in order, returning to the first mode after reaching the end. The macOS shortcut is ⌘ + ., Windows is Ctrl + ., and Linux is Ctrl + ..
- Accept suggestions: Click the mode-switch suggestion provided by Roo when appropriate.
Built-in modes:
- Code mode (default)
- Ask mode
- Architect mode
- Debug mode
- Orchestrator mode (also known as Boomerang mode)
Custom modes: You can customize Roo Code's behavior by customizing existing modes or creating new specialized assistants. Define tool access, file permissions, and behavioral instructions to enforce team standards or create purpose-specific assistants. See the custom modes documentation for details.
Tool groups: Each tool group provides specific capabilities:
- read: File reading, listing, and search capabilities.
- edit: File modification and creation capabilities.
- command: Terminal command execution.
- mcp: Model Context Protocol server interaction.
Modes remember the last used model, and when switching modes, Roo automatically selects that model without manual selection. You can assign different models to different modes (for example, assign Gemini 2.5 Preview to 🏗️ Architect mode and Claude Sonnet 3.7 to 💻 Code mode), and Roo will automatically switch models when switching modes. In addition, the selected mode persists across sessionsand Roo remembers the mode the user was using when they return.
Limitations: More details about billing, pricing, platform support, or specific usage steps are not provided in the material.
