council

/council — Multi-Model Consensus Council

Convene N independent reasoners over a shared briefing and return one synthesis. --mode selects the deliberation pattern — brainstorm, debate, or verdict. Everything else (--focus, --depth, --runtime, --roster) is an orthogonal knob.

Loop position

Cross-cutting judgment gate available at any operating loop move where multi-model consensus is required: typically pre-flight on the slice plan (between moves 3 and 4), per-slice on non-mechanical correctness (move 6), and on the bead acceptance roll-up. Council does not own a loop move — it provides verdicts that other moves consume. Use it at slice level when a single test cannot capture taste; use it at bead level when acceptance examples are passing but the consumer-facing behavior still needs adversarial review.

Quick Start

/council validate this plan                                    # verdict mode (the default)
/council --mode=brainstorm caching approaches                  # brainstorm mode
/council --mode=debate should we adopt event sourcing?         # debate mode (named personas duel)
/council --depth=quick validate recent                         # fast inline check
/council --mode=brainstorm --focus=research k8s upgrade paths   # research = focused brainstorm
/council --roster=security-audit validate the auth system      # preset persona roster
/council --depth=deep --runtime=mixed --roster=leadership-quartet validate product thesis
/council --adversarial validate the auth system                # verdict over 2 adversarial rounds
/council                                                       # infers mode from context

Council works independently — no RPI workflow, no ratchet chain, no ao CLI required.

Modes — the deliberation taxonomy

--mode selects one of exactly three deliberation patterns; verdict is the default. The taxonomy is frozen as an executable spec — references/council-modes.feature.

verdict runs when --mode is omitted. validate is a verdict alias; research folds into brainstorm (--focus=research). When --mode is omitted council infers it from natural language — trigger words in references/task-type-rigor-gate.md.

Mode and focus are orthogonal. --mode is the deliberation pattern; --focus is the subject. --depth, --runtime, and --roster are knobs, never modes. Every mode runs the same lifecycle — convene → brief → deliberate → synthesize → record — and deliberate always isolates each agent before any cross-talk. Full taxonomy, knob aliases (--quick/--deep/--mixed), and the lifecycle contract: references/modes.md.

Spawn backend (MANDATORY)

Council requires a runtime that can spawn parallel subagents and (for debate and --adversarial) send messages between agents. If no multi-agent capability is detected, fall back to --depth=quick (inline single-agent). Skills describe WHAT to do, not WHICH tool — see skills/shared/SKILL.md for the capability contract. Backend-specific spawn/wait/message/cleanup examples:

• Claude Native Teams → references/backend-claude-teams.md · Codex Sub-Agents / CLI → references/backend-codex-subagents.md
• Background Tasks → references/backend-background-tasks.md · Inline → references/backend-inline.md
• Shared Claude feature contract → skills/shared/references/claude-code-latest-features.md (local mirror: references/claude-code-latest-features.md)

See references/cli-spawning.md for the council-specific spawning flow (phases, timeouts, output collection).

Debate mode (--mode=debate)

--mode=debate convenes 2–4 named domain-expert personas who duel: each writes an independent verdict in character, every persona adversarially cross-scores every rival 0–1000, then a mandatory reveal round forces concessions and surfaces blind spots. Synthesis is a score matrix → a ranked decision with dissent kept verbatim. dueling-idea-wizards maps to --mode=debate --focus=ideas; the legacy expert-council command routes here.

Constraints: personas decide and the orchestrator only counts; the briefing goes on disk, never through argv; the reveal is never skipped. Per-phase persona-slate / duel / reveal / score-matrix templates: references/dueling-route.md.

Aliases (absorbed skills)

These trigger phrases route to --mode=debate — there is no separate skill (the former expert-council skill was absorbed here):

When invoked under any of these, run debate mode directly with the same arguments — do not run a separate workflow.

Adversarial round (--adversarial) — a verdict intensifier

--adversarial is a verdict-mode flag, not the debate mode. It runs verdict over two rounds — R1 independent verdicts, R2 steel-manning revision via backend messaging — for high-stakes verdicts where judges are likely to disagree (security audits, architecture decisions, migration plans). Skip it for routine validation where consensus is expected. Full protocol: references/adversarial-protocol.md.

Incompatibilities:

• --depth=quick and --adversarial cannot be combined. If both are passed, exit with error: "Error: --quick and --adversarial are incompatible."
• --adversarial only applies to verdict mode. Combined with --mode=brainstorm or --mode=debate, exit with error: "Error: --adversarial is only supported with verdict mode."

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Architecture

See references/architecture-flow.md for the context-budget rule, full Phase 1→3 execution flow diagram, reviewer-config loading, graceful degradation table, effort levels, and pre-flight checks.

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Packet Format (JSON)

See references/packet-format.md for the full JSON packet schema (fields, output_schema, judge-prompt boundary rules) and the Empirical Evidence Rule for feasibility reviews.

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Perspectives

Perspectives & Presets: Use Read tool on skills/council/references/personas.md for persona definitions, preset configurations, and custom perspective details.

Auto-Escalation: When --preset or --perspectives specifies more perspectives than the current judge count, automatically escalate judge count to match. The --count flag overrides auto-escalation.

Mixed-mode perspective assignment: Under --mixed, the perspective list is built once and each perspective is assigned to one Claude judge and one Codex judge with identical prompt and packet. This produces head-to-head pairs (perspective × vendor) so verdict differences isolate the vendor variable. Without --preset or --perspectives, both vendors run 3 generic judges each (6 total). With a 4-perspective preset like security-audit, plan-review, or leadership-quartet, both vendors run those 4 perspectives (8 total). Do not split perspectives across vendors — symmetric pairing is the whole point of --mixed.

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Named Perspectives & Consensus

See references/consensus-and-output.md for named-perspective usage (--perspectives, --perspectives-file, YAML format, flag priority), consensus verdict rules (PASS/WARN/FAIL combination table, DISAGREE resolution), and the finding-extraction flywheel protocol. See references/personas.md for built-in presets.

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Explorer Sub-Agents

Explorer Details: Use Read tool on skills/council/references/explorers.md for explorer architecture, prompts, sub-question generation, and timeout configuration.

Summary: Judges can spawn explorer sub-agents (--explorers=N, max 5) for parallel deep-dive research. Total agents = judges * (1 + explorers), capped at MAX_AGENTS=12.

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Agent Prompts

Agent Prompts: Use Read tool on skills/council/references/agent-prompts.md for judge prompts (default and perspective-based), consolidation prompt, and debate R2 message template.

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Output Format & Consensus Rules

Consensus verdict combination rules, DISAGREE handling, and the finding-extraction flywheel protocol live in references/consensus-and-output.md. Full report templates (validate, brainstorm, research) and debate-report additions live in references/output-format.md. All reports write to .agents/council/YYYY-MM-DD-<type>-<target>.md. Findings extraction targets .agents/council/extraction-candidates.jsonl; see references/finding-extraction.md for schema and classification heuristics.

Core consensus rules: All PASS -> PASS; Any FAIL -> FAIL; Mixed PASS/WARN -> WARN; cross-vendor disagreement -> DISAGREE.

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Configuration

Minimum quorum: 1 agent. Recommended: 80% of judges. On timeout, proceed with remaining judges and note in report. On user cancellation, shutdown all judges and generate partial report with INCOMPLETE marker.

See references/flags-reference.md for the full flag and environment variable reference (COUNCIL_TIMEOUT, COUNCIL_CODEX_MODEL, --deep, --mixed, --adversarial, --evidence, --commit-ready, --preset, --profile, and all other flags).

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CLI Spawning Commands

CLI Spawning: Use Read tool on skills/council/references/cli-spawning.md for team setup, Claude/Codex agent spawning, parallel execution, debate R2 commands, cleanup, and model selection.

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Examples

See references/examples-extended.md for the full example catalog and walkthroughs (fast single-agent validation, adversarial debate, cross-vendor consensus with explorers).

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Troubleshooting

See references/troubleshooting.md for common error messages, causes, and solutions, plus the judge→council migration table.

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Multi-Agent Architecture

See references/multi-agent-architecture.md for the deliberation protocol, communication rules, Ralph Wiggum compliance, degradation behavior, and judge naming convention.

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See Also

• skills/vibe/SKILL.md — Complexity + council for code validation (uses --preset=code-review when spec found)
• skills/pre-mortem/SKILL.md — Plan validation (uses --preset=plan-review, always 3 judges)
• skills/post-mortem/SKILL.md — Work wrap-up (uses --preset=retrospective, always 3 judges + retro)
• skills/swarm/SKILL.md — Multi-agent orchestration
• skills/standards/SKILL.md — Language-specific coding standards
• skills/research/SKILL.md — Codebase exploration (complementary to --mode=brainstorm --focus=research)

Reference Documents

• references/modes.md
• references/council-modes.feature
• references/dueling-route.md
• references/cross-vendor-duel-when-to-use.md — Strategic call (when Opus+Codex is worth the cost) + score-symmetry diagnostic
• references/architecture-flow.md
• references/packet-format.md
• references/flags-reference.md
• references/examples-extended.md
• references/troubleshooting.md
• references/multi-agent-architecture.md
• references/task-type-rigor-gate.md
• references/consensus-and-output.md
• references/model-routing.md
• references/backend-background-tasks.md
• references/backend-claude-teams.md
• references/backend-codex-subagents.md
• references/backend-inline.md
• references/brainstorm-techniques.md
• references/claude-code-latest-features.md
• references/model-profiles.md
• references/presets.md
• references/quick-mode.md
• references/ralph-loop-contract.md
• references/agent-prompts.md
• references/cli-spawning.md
• references/adversarial-protocol.md
• references/explorers.md
• references/finding-extraction.md
• references/output-format.md
• references/personas.md
• references/caching-guidance.md
• references/reviewer-config-example.md
• references/strategic-doc-validation.md
• references/evidence-mode.md
• ../shared/references/backend-background-tasks.md
• ../shared/references/backend-claude-teams.md
• ../shared/references/backend-codex-subagents.md
• ../shared/references/backend-inline.md
• ../shared/references/claude-code-latest-features.md
• ../shared/references/ralph-loop-contract.md