roundtable

# Roundtable Use after requirements are settled and before implementation, when a proposal needs sharper product, architecture, operations, or downstream-impact thinking. `/grill-me` establishes what *the user* thinks. This skill harvests what *other perspectives* think. Do not re-run the grill: the user has already decided what they want built. ## The rule that makes this work **Every seat runs as its own subagent, and all seats launch in a single message so they run concurrently.** A seat must never see another seat's critique. This is not a performance optimization — it is the entire premise. Running the seats as sequential passes in one context means seat five reads seats one through four and anchors on them. That produces an echo chamber wearing several hats, which is the exact failure this skill exists to prevent. If the harness cannot spawn parallel subagents, say so plainly in the output rather than silently degrading. Seats are critics, not implementers. Every seat prompt must forbid modifying files. ## Workflow ### 1. Establish the proposal Read the spec, plan, branch diff, and the code or docs the proposal touches. If the user asked for external inspiration or wants current product behavior checked, browse primary sources and keep the links. Write down the **settled assumptions** — decisions already made that seats may not relitigate. Without this, seats waste their turn arguing the premise. If the proposal is too vague to critique, stop and say so; a roundtable over a mush of intentions produces mush. ### 2. Choose seats Pick the 3–6 seats that fit *this* problem. Convening all of them every time is noise, and a seat with nothing to say will invent something rather than pass. - **Codebase consistency** — existing patterns, ownership boundaries, naming, generated files, package seams. - **Simplifier** — tables, states, abstractions, and duplicate concepts that collapse without losing behavior. - **Product/UX** — labels, trust, empty/loading/error states, editor vs. public surfaces, user expectations. - **Reliability/operations** — queues, retries, idempotency, leases, observability, cost, support and debug flows. - **Data/SQL** — schema shape, constraints, indexes, migrations, query plans, deletion semantics. - **Prompt/AI** — task framing, structured output, validation, repair, protected tokens, privacy and logging. - **SEO/external research** — current market behavior, search and indexing risk, standards, policy constraints. - **Downstream integrations** — copied data, caches, APIs, analytics, admin tools, worker bindings. Add a seat the list doesn't cover when the problem calls for it (security, accessibility, i18n, migration sequencing, pricing). ### 3. Run the critiques in parallel Launch every seat in **one message, one subagent each**. In Claude Code that is the Agent tool with `general-purpose`; use whatever read-only subagent the harness offers elsewhere. Give each seat the same brief, varying only the lens: > You are the **{seat}** seat on an adversarial review of the proposal below. Critique it from your > lens only — other seats cover theirs, and you cannot see their work. > > **Proposal:** {inline text, or exact paths to read} > **Settled — do not relitigate:** {assumptions} > > Read whatever code, docs, or sources you need. **Do not modify any file.** Find the failure mode > a smart reviewer would miss, not the one on the surface. If your lens genuinely has no serious > concern here, say so and stop — a manufactured objection is worse than silence. > > Return exactly: > - **Strongest concern** — one sentence > - **Downstream impact** — what concretely breaks, and where > - **Recommendation** — the specific change > - **Confidence** — high / medium / low > - **Evidence** — `file:line` refs, or source links Include the proposal text inline when it is short enough. Seats that each re-derive the proposal from scattered files critique slightly different proposals. ### 4. Commune Synthesize; do not concatenate. Eight critiques pasted end to end is not a roundtable, it is a mailing list. Sort every point into: - **Accept now** - **Accept, narrower scope** - **Defer** — with the trigger that would revive it - **Reject** — with the reason Weight toward changes that remove ambiguity, prevent misleading UX, or make failure modes observable. Do not let speculative elegance overrule a settled product constraint. When two seats contradict each other, say so and pick — an unresolved contradiction handed back to the user is work you were supposed to do. ### 5. Pursue live threads If a critique is high-leverage but thin on evidence, spend one focused code or web exploration confirming it before synthesis. If a critique is weak, dismiss it plainly — "the ops seat wanted a queue; the volume is 40 writes a day" is a complete rebuttal. ### 6. Patch the artifact Update the spec or plan so accepted decisions land where the implementer will actually see them. Then scan for contradictions the patch just created and fix them. ## Output Keep it short. The council was the work; the report is not. - What the roundtable changed - What was rejected or scoped down, and why - Contradiction and validation scans performed - Links to updated files and any external sources used Name the seats that found nothing. A silent seat is a real result — it means that lens is clean.