council

Council Skill

Vendored from danielmiessler/LifeOS install/skills/Council (upstream v1.1.20). De-Clauded for this machine: no voice-notification curl, no ~/.claude/ customization path, no execution-log JSONL, no RedTeam cross-references. See Running the members below — members run as mu_delegate panes, or in-context when that tool is absent.

<!-- local: description narrowed to explicit council/debate requests; "weigh options", "deliberate", "pros and cons" and "what would experts say" stole ordinary trade-off questions -->

What It Does

Runs a multi-agent debate. Custom-composed agents discuss a topic over rounds, respond to each other's points, and expose weak arguments through substantive disagreement. You get a visible round-by-round transcript plus a synthesis. DEBATE runs three rounds; QUICK runs one for a fast perspective check.

The Problem

When you ask one model for an opinion, you get one frame and one set of blind spots. Asking for "pros and cons" gives you a flat list with no one pushing back. Deliberation needs distinct experts who disagree on the merits, so weak arguments surface before you commit. Generic built-in agents tend to produce bland agreement; this skill composes topic-specific agents with conflicting positions.

How It Works

Members discuss the topic in rounds and respond to specific claims from earlier rounds.

Members Are Custom Briefs

Write each council member inline as a short brief — a name, a role, a stance, and what they'll push on. A generic persona is topic-ignorant and produces bland agreement. The friction comes from four different briefs, each with real domain expertise and a distinct analytical angle.

See CouncilMembers.md for the slot guidance and an example brief.

Running the members

Upstream assumes a Task/Agent tool with subagent_type. Pi has no such built-in; in pi the members run as mu delegates when the mu_delegate tool is available, and in-context otherwise:

Mode	When	How
Delegates (default when available)	mu_delegate is in your tool list (an unmanaged pi with mu link pi; it is absent inside mu panes)	One mu_delegate call per member per round: brief = the member brief, task = round instructions + full topic context + the transcript so far (a delegate starts with no context). Members within a round run in parallel as visible scratch panes the user can attach to and steer. Each answer arrives as a follow-up message; do not poll. Rounds stay sequential: wait for all members' follow-ups before sending the next round
In-context (fallback)	No mu_delegate	You play every member yourself, one section at a time. Write the brief, then answer as that member before moving to the next. Do not peek ahead — draft each member's Round-N text in full before starting the next member's
mu crew	Long debate you want to interrogate between rounds	Drive it with the mu skill, one long-lived agent per member

Other harnesses (Claude Code, Codex) can use their native task tool in the delegate slot; those are hidden subagents, with no pane to watch or steer.

In-context loses true independence — you know what the other members will say. Compensate by committing to each brief's stance hard, and by writing the weakest member's position first so it doesn't get retro-fitted to the conclusion. The transcript is still the deliverable either way.

Workflow Routing

Route to the appropriate workflow based on the request.

Trigger	Workflow
Full structured debate (3 rounds, visible transcript)	Workflows/Debate.md
Quick consensus check (1 round, fast)	Workflows/Quick.md

Council is collaborative-adversarial: members debate to find the best path. Pure adversarial attack on a single idea is out of scope — say so rather than bending a debate into a teardown.

Quick Reference

Workflow	Purpose	Rounds	Output
DEBATE	Full structured discussion	3	Complete transcript + synthesis
QUICK	Fast perspective check	1	Initial positions only

Context Files

File	Content
CouncilMembers.md	How to write council member briefs inline
RoundStructure.md	Three-round debate structure and timing
OutputFormat.md	Transcript format templates

Core Philosophy

Origin: Council compares informed positions through direct challenges. Domain-specific members respond to each other's claims instead of listing independent opinions.

Agents: Every council member is a custom brief you write for the topic. This gives each member a distinct role, stance, and domain expertise. Generic agents produce generic debate; topic-specific briefs produce sharp, informed debate.

Speed: With delegates, execution is parallel within rounds and sequential between them — a 3-round debate of 4 members is 12 agent calls but only 3 sequential waits (40-90 seconds). In-context, it's one pass and correspondingly slower to read but cheaper to run.

Examples

"Council: Should we use WebSockets or SSE?"
-> Write 4 member briefs (real-time architect, frontend-DX, ops skeptic, analyst)
-> DEBATE workflow -> 3-round transcript

"Quick council check: Is this API design reasonable?"
-> Write 4 member briefs with API-relevant roles
-> QUICK workflow -> Fast perspectives

"Council: Is AI overhyped?"
-> Write briefs: AI builder, security skeptic, pragmatic engineer, evidence analyst
-> DEBATE workflow -> 3-round transcript

Integration

Works well with:

• brainstorm - Council to pick between approaches, then brainstorm the winner into a spec
• mu - Supplies mu_delegate for the members; drive a crew directly when you want long-lived members you can interrogate. To pick one winner from many candidates rather than debate, use mu's recipes/tournament.md; to attack a plan or finding, recipes/refute.md

Practices

1. Use QUICK for sanity checks, DEBATE for important decisions
2. Write each member's brief around the specific topic, not a generic role
3. Give each member a distinct stance — four identical agents produce no friction

Gotchas

• Council members are inline briefs. There is no composition tool. Write four different topic-specific briefs; a bare persona-less agent produces bland agreement.
• Debates need substantive disagreement. If all members agree, the topic may not warrant Council.
• More agents ≠ better debate. 4-6 well-briefed members outperform 12 generic ones.
• In-context mode is self-debate. You are simulating disagreement, not sampling it. Worth doing, worth not overtrusting — a convergence you reached alone is weaker evidence than four independent agents landing in the same place.