Formats

What a format is

A format is the official competition shape: how many athletes per station, who owns which result, and how the room's outcome is decided. CCB has four named formats in its specifications.

This page describes what each format is and which are available, specified, or planned. The word "format" applies to the Competition surface — Group Sessions in everyday training do not pick a format. They are always a Group Session.

The four official formats

The classification uses the canonical availability labels from this documentation:

• Available now
• Specified
• Planned
• Competition only
• Not currently available

Solo

One athlete per station. The athlete owns their full result. There is no team aggregation in Solo. Solo is the simplest shape and the basis for Race Practice Solo (a planned training context).

What is standardized

• Exactly one athlete per station.
• The athlete's result is the station's result.
• The platform runs the same Work Phase and Evaluation as in any other format.

What is not standardized

• Whether the athlete works while a partner rests. In Solo, the athlete owns their work; there is no partner.

Availability

Solo is a Competition-only format. Solo Race Practice (a self-reported rehearsal of the same Solo shape) is planned as a future training context.

Couple

Two athletes per station, working simultaneously. The pair is the unit of consequence; the room of Couples is the unit of consequence above that.

The standard pairing for ordinary group training is Couples — two athletes per station as the default. This is the everyday shape of a Group Session.

What is standardized

• Exactly two athletes per station, when the format is Couple.
• Both athletes' results are aggregated into the station's total.
• A Couple Group Session at full strength contains 12 Couples and 24 athletes.

What is not standardized

• The role assignment inside a Couple. In MVP, the platform does not track per-athlete "worker" or "tracker" roles; both athletes work. This is platform simplification, not part of the format.

Availability

Couple is a Competition-only format. Couple Race Practice (a self-reported rehearsal of the same Couple shape, where each athlete owns their own result and the team total is server-derived) is planned as a future training context.

Trio

Three athletes per station, working simultaneously. The trio is the unit of consequence.

Trio is permitted at Group Sessions when attendance is odd and the cap on a station has been raised to three (the parity smart default). In competition, Trio is one of the official formats.

What is standardized

• Exactly three athletes per station, when the format is Trio.
• All three athletes' results are aggregated into the station's total.
• A Trio Group Session at full strength contains 8 Trios and 24 athletes.

What is not standardized

• The role assignment inside a Trio. The platform does not track which athlete is working, which is resting, or which is tracking. This is platform simplification.

Availability

Trio is a Competition-only format. Trio Race Practice is planned as a future training context.

Group Session

The Group Session is the everyday training Session. It is a session type, not a Competition format. The coach does not choose a format for a Group Session — the format is implicit from how the room fills the stations.

What is standardized

• Up to two athletes per station by default (the format default cap).
• Per-station Athletes aggregate into the room's outcome for each Work Phase.
• 4–24 athletes (typical 8–24 at the two-per-station default).
• Coach authority on Burden completion (within the format's rules).

What is not standardized

• The pairing composition. Groups are emergent — athletes arrive, scan the Session QR code, and choose where they start. The composition changes minute-to-minute as rotation moves the room through the cycle.

Availability

Group Session is available now. It is the format the platform runs in MVP. The other three formats are Competition-only and ship with the Competition tier.

How the formats differ

The formats differ in five ways:

• Participant count. How many athletes at a station at once.
• Result ownership. Whose result contributes to the station total.
• Team aggregation. How individual results become a station total, and how station totals become a room total.
• Readiness authority. Who can advance the room past a Decision Point.
• Burden completion. Whether the room completes the Burdens together, and who signals completion.

The CCB Core Specification defines the exact rules. The plain-language summary above is the documentation's canonical explanation.

Format availability vs. specification support

A format that is specified (its rules are in the Core Specification) is not necessarily available in the platform. The four formats above are specified in the Core Specification; only Group Session has shipped in the MVP platform. The remaining three ship with the Competition tier.

The documentation distinguishes this with the availability labels so readers do not mistake a specified format for a shipped one.

Race Practice is not a format

Race Practice is a separate context, not a format. Race Practice runs the same engine as a Group Session, with the room rather than a coach driving the lifecycle and the athlete rather than the platform or a Judge authorizing outcomes. The Race Practice page explains the difference in full.