agent-debate

name	agent-debate
description	Use only when the user explicitly invokes $agent-debate, or when a loaded workflow routes here, and same-topic shared material needs adversarial product tradeoffs, requirement convergence, scope pruning, or decision clarity. Do not use for lanes, returned-lane review, code review, or single-agent brainstorming.

Agent Debate

Moderate same-topic disagreement. Agents inspect the same material to clarify tradeoffs, risks, and decisions. When Requirements routes here after discovery, converge the candidate set through explicit scope pruning. Participants do not own separate work areas.

Iron Law

SAME TOPIC, SAME MATERIAL, SAME ROUND.

Sections and categories are prompts for every participant, not lane boundaries.

Use For

• requirements or product tradeoffs
• simplicity, necessity, usability, user flow, or "too heavy" questions
• agent-answerable disagreement before escalating to the user
• decision candidates from conflicting views

Use agent-review for one concrete artifact. Use agent-lanes when agents should own disjoint surfaces.

Preflight

• restore only the source context needed for the debate
• route every dispatched participant through agent-runtime for worker lifecycle and the applicable native-default, profile-governed, or external/session gates
• get authorization before sending content to external, paid, account-bound, or data-leaving agents

Round Rules

• Round 1: independent, source-first, same question for all.
• Moderator normalizes accepted, rejected, unresolved, evidence gaps, and decision candidates.
• Round 2+: send the same conflict summary back for rebuttal when needed.
• Promote only evidence-backed findings, assumptions, tradeoffs, and decisions.

Stop with a decision only when no accepted blocker/major disagreement remains. Defer only minor, out-of-scope, or future issues with reason, owner, and risk. If a true user decision remains, pause and return the exact decision instead of claiming convergence.

Requirements Convergence Mode

When agent-requirements-analysis routes a discovered candidate set here, read its requirements-convergence.md contract completely. It is the canonical owner of the convergence packet, challenge dimensions, authority rules, outcomes, candidate coverage, and compact ledger semantics. This skill owns the adversarial round and returned snapshot; it does not redefine that protocol or publish the Requirements Baseline.

Output

For ordinary debate, lead with the decision. Preserve material tradeoffs, blockers, and the next action; omit repeated arguments:

Decision:
Tradeoffs:
Remaining blocker/major:
Open user decision:
Next action:

Omit empty headings.

For Requirements convergence return:

Convergence snapshot handle / candidate-set version:
Core Problem verdict:
Candidate outcomes and survivor recommendations:
Scope Pruning Ledger:
Candidate coverage: every handle -> one outcome
Remaining blocker/major:
Open user decision:
Next action: return to agent-requirements-analysis

Return the canonical outcomes and ledger rows without a transcript. The Requirements owner marks this snapshot consumed only after integrating the returned outcomes; dispatch, worker completion, or partial round state alone is not a passed convergence gate.

Red Flags

• Splitting agents by section before shared-topic review.
• Treating agreement as proof.
• Dispatching model mixes without approval.
• Ending after Round 1 while blocker/major disagreement remains.
• Letting agents write the shared blackboard directly.
• Pruning before Requirements has consumed discovery deltas or canonical discovery-skip evidence and assembled a versioned Candidate Requirement Set.
• Keeping a feature because it is interesting or comprehensive rather than necessary.
• Cutting a confirmed user requirement by majority vote.
• Returning raw debate, duplicated arguments, or silently removed branches.
• Calling the result a Requirements Baseline instead of returning convergence decisions to the Requirements owner.