Basic vs Developer mode
PFN Studio ships two personas. They share the same data, the same backend, and the same trained brains — only the framing changes.
Basic mode (🎓 Walk me through it)
The wizard-driven flow. Everything is plain-English.
| Surface | Route | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Brain index | /brains | Tile grid of your trained brains, with capability chips + status |
| Teach a brain | /teach | The 5-step wizard |
| Brain dashboard | /brain/:id | Live training progress, ready-state Try-it, cancel button |
| Marketplace | /marketplace | Browse installable priors + brains |
The nav surfaces just: 🧠 Teach a brain, My brains, ↗ Marketplace.
Choose this when:
- You’re building your first brain and want sensible defaults
- You don’t need to author your own prior code or YAML
- You want to focus on what the brain does (capabilities), not how it’s wired
Developer mode (🛠️ Give me the tools)
Full access to every artifact the wizard generates — and the ability to author your own.
| Surface | Route | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Projects index | /projects | List of all projects |
| Project shell | /projects/:id | Six tabs: Overview, Priors, Models, Evals, Runs, Roadmap |
| Datasets | /datasets | Per-org registry of benchmark datasets |
Each project tab is a real CRUD surface — see Developer mode for the tour.
Choose this when:
- You want to write or edit prior Python directly
- You need fine-grained control over model architecture (layers, heads, blocks)
- You’re authoring evals, datasets, or paper reproductions
- You want to use the CLI to push priors from your local workstation
Switching personas
The choice is not permanent. Switch any time from the avatar menu in the top-right:
- Click the circle with your initial (top-right of any page)
- The menu shows your current persona at the top
- Click Switch to Developer mode (or Switch to Basic mode)
The switch is instant — your next click on the nav lands on the new persona’s home page. All your data stays — only the framing changes. Brains created in basic mode show up under Priors / Models / Runs in developer mode, and vice versa.
Same data, different framing
The wizard in basic mode creates the same underlying artifacts as developer mode:
| Basic mode says | Developer mode shows |
|---|---|
| ”Practice data” | A Prior (with Python code, parameters, outputs) |
| “Brain” | A Model (with blocks list, output heads, input shape) |
| “Goals” | Evals (one EvalSpec per goal, with metrics + baselines) |
| “Practise” | A Run (RunSpec with hyperparams + compute target) |
So if you start in basic mode and outgrow it, switch to developer mode — your brain is already represented as full priors / models / evals / runs. Nothing to migrate.