Council

Convene four advisors for ambiguous decisions:

• the in-context Claude voice
• a Skeptic subagent
• a Pragmatist subagent
• a Critic subagent

This is for decision-making under ambiguity, not code review, implementation planning, or architecture design.

When to Use

Use council when:

• a decision has multiple credible paths and no obvious winner
• you need explicit tradeoff surfacing
• the user asks for second opinions, dissent, or multiple perspectives
• conversational anchoring is a real risk
• a go / no-go call would benefit from adversarial challenge

Examples:

• monorepo vs polyrepo
• ship now vs hold for polish
• feature flag vs full rollout
• simplify scope vs keep strategic breadth

When NOT to Use

Roles

The three external voices should be launched as fresh subagents with only the question and relevant context, not the full ongoing conversation. That is the anti-anchoring mechanism.

Workflow

1. Extract the real question

Reduce the decision to one explicit prompt:

• what are we deciding?
• what constraints matter?
• what counts as success?

If the question is vague, ask one clarifying question before convening the council.

2. Gather only the necessary context

If the decision is codebase-specific:

• collect the relevant files, snippets, issue text, or metrics
• keep it compact
• include only the context needed to make the decision

If the decision is strategic/general:

• skip repo snippets unless they materially change the answer

3. Form the Architect position first

Before reading other voices, write down:

• your initial position
• the three strongest reasons for it
• the main risk in your preferred path

Do this first so the synthesis does not simply mirror the external voices.

4. Launch three independent voices in parallel

Each subagent gets:

• the decision question
• compact context if needed
• a strict role
• no unnecessary conversation history

Prompt shape:

You are the [ROLE] on a four-voice decision council.

Question:
[decision question]

Context:
[only the relevant snippets or constraints]

Respond with:
1. Position — 1-2 sentences
2. Reasoning — 3 concise bullets
3. Risk — biggest risk in your recommendation
4. Surprise — one thing the other voices may miss

Be direct. No hedging. Keep it under 300 words.

Role emphasis:

• Skeptic: challenge framing, question assumptions, propose the simplest credible alternative
• Pragmatist: optimize for speed, simplicity, and real-world execution
• Critic: surface downside risk, edge cases, and reasons the plan could fail

5. Synthesize with bias guardrails

You are both a participant and the synthesizer, so use these rules:

• do not dismiss an external view without explaining why
• if an external voice changed your recommendation, say so explicitly
• always include the strongest dissent, even if you reject it
• if two voices align against your initial position, treat that as a real signal
• keep the raw positions visible before the verdict

6. Present a compact verdict

Use this output shape:

## Council: [short decision title]

**Architect:** [1-2 sentence position]
[1 line on why]

**Skeptic:** [1-2 sentence position]
[1 line on why]

**Pragmatist:** [1-2 sentence position]
[1 line on why]

…