Every Astral account has a role that determines what the account can see, create, and manage. Roles are set at signup and can be upgraded later — for example, an existing athlete account can become a coach account by signing in at the coach console.
The two main roles
Athlete
The default role for anyone who signs up via the mobile app. Athletes can:
- View and follow their assigned training plan
- Log activities manually or via connected integrations (Strava, Garmin, Apple Health)
- See AI-generated summaries for their completed runs
- Track their pace zones and VDOT score
- Participate in their organization’s leaderboard and group feed
- Control their own privacy settings (what data coaches and teammates can see)
Athletes cannot create training plans for other users, manage organization members, or access the coach console at app.nexrex.ai.
Coach
Coaches have everything athletes have, plus access to the coach console. The coach role covers three sub-roles:
| Sub-role | Internal value | What they can do |
|---|
| Head Coach | head_coach | Full control: create and manage the organization, add/remove coaches, assign athletes to coaches, generate and assign training plans to any member |
| Assistant Coach | assistant_coach | Manage and view athletes assigned to them; create workouts and plans; cannot add or remove other coaches |
| Coach (general) | coach | Equivalent to Assistant Coach for most purposes; used during the initial onboarding flow before a specific sub-role is assigned |
When you sign up via the coach console, your account starts with the coach role. The platform then bootstraps your Head Coach profile automatically, elevating your effective permissions to Head Coach within your organization.
How roles affect access
Training plans
| Action | Athlete | Assistant Coach | Head Coach |
|---|
| View assigned plans | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Create plan templates | No | Yes | Yes |
| Assign plans to others | No | To own athletes only | To any member |
| Generate AI plans | No | Yes | Yes |
Organization management
| Action | Athlete | Assistant Coach | Head Coach |
|---|
| View organization members | No | Yes (all members) | Yes (all members) |
| Add / remove members | No | No | Yes |
| Add / remove coaches | No | No | Yes |
| Assign athletes to coaches | No | No | Yes |
| Edit organization settings | No | No | Yes |
Activity data
| Action | Athlete | Coach |
|---|
| View own activities | Yes | Yes |
| View athlete activities | No | Yes (subject to athlete privacy settings) |
| Leave comments on activities | Yes (own) | Yes (athletes in org) |
Changing roles
Roles are set during signup via the membership_role field:
{
"membership_role": "athlete"
}
athlete or coach. The sub-roles head_coach and assistant_coach are assigned by the platform after signup — you cannot set them directly.
If you signed up as an athlete but later want to coach a team, sign in at app.nexrex.ai with your existing credentials. The system detects your existing account and upgrades your role to coach without creating a new account.
Role upgrades are one-directional through the normal flow: you can go from athlete to coach, but downgrading a coach account back to athlete requires contacting support.
Privacy and visibility
Athletes control how much of their data is visible to coaches and teammates through their Privacy settings. Coaches always see what athletes explicitly share with them — they cannot override an athlete’s privacy settings.
Key privacy controls available to athletes:
- Share activity data with coach
- Share activity data with training group
- Share pace data
- Share race goals
- Share profile info
- Participate in leaderboard
These settings default to on for most fields at signup, but athletes can adjust them at any time under Profile → Privacy. 