danielmiessler/lifeos/council

Council

Runs a multi-agent debate. Topic-briefed members discuss a topic over rounds, respond to each other's actual points, and surface insights through real intellectual friction. You get a visible round-by-round transcript plus a synthesis. DEBATE runs three rounds; QUICK runs one for a fast perspective check.

One model gives one frame and one set of blind spots, and "pros and cons" gives a flat list with no one pushing back; distinct experts who disagree on the merits expose the weak parts of an idea before you commit.

Ideal State

• Every council is four different topic-specific member briefs, written before the first round runs, each giving a name, the member's role/expertise, the stance they hold, and what they'll push on; no member is a bare built-in agent type with no persona.
• The members are split across vendors so the debate never shares one lineage's blind spots; a member that failed or did not run on its requested vendor is named in the transcript, never silently dropped or kept.
• Every member argues from the full context the request supplied (the measured facts, files, quotes and constraints), so positions engage the actual decision rather than a generic version of it.
• Members answer each other's actual points by name, and the transcript shows that friction round by round.
• The output ends in a usable verdict (a recommended path for DEBATE, proceed / reconsider / escalate for QUICK) that states remaining disagreement instead of forcing consensus.
• The answer delivered is the finished debate; no member's work is still running when it is handed over.

Intent Routing

Council is collaborative-adversarial (debate to find the best path) and produces visible transcripts; pure adversarial attack is not a Council intent — redirect to the RedTeam skill.

Data & Config

User customizations live at <configRoot>/LIFEOS/USER/CUSTOMIZATIONS/SKILLS/Council/ (configRoot is $CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR when set, else ~/.claude). When that directory exists, its PREFERENCES.md, configurations and resources override the defaults here; when it is absent, the defaults stand.

First-time setup for the vendor split is in Setup.md.

Integration

Works well with:

• RedTeam - Pure adversarial attack after collaborative discussion
• Research - Gather context before convening the council

Gotchas

• There is no composition tool and no trait matrix. Members are inline briefs (CouncilMembers.md § The brief), each run as one direct call, with an Agent spawn only when the member must fetch something live; in the 2026-09-18 paired probe each subagent member cost about 100k tokens of injected context and one wrapped its answer in a report about itself (CouncilMembers.md § Launch).
• More agents ≠ better debate. 4-6 well-briefed agents outperform 12 generic ones.

Examples

User: "Council: Should we use WebSockets or SSE?"
→ Debate intent: a real-time architect, a frontend-DX advocate, an ops skeptic and a researcher
→ A 3-round transcript ending in a recommended path, the strongest objection still standing, and what would flip it
 
User: "Quick council check: Is this API design reasonable?"
→ Quick intent: four API-relevant members
→ One round of 30-50 word takes and a Proceed / Reconsider / Need full debate call
 
User: "Council: Is AI overhyped?"
→ Debate intent: an AI builder, a security skeptic, a pragmatic engineer and an evidence analyst
→ A 3-round transcript where at least one stance sharpens under challenge, with disagreements left standing