council

name	council
description	Convene a four-voice council for ambiguous decisions, tradeoffs, and go/no-go calls. Use when multiple valid paths exist and you need structured disagreement before choosing.
origin	ecc

Council

Convene four advisors for ambiguous decisions:

• the in-context Codex 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

Instead of council	Use
Verifying whether output is correct	santa-method
Breaking a feature into implementation steps	planner
Designing system architecture	architect
Reviewing code for bugs or security	code-reviewer or santa-method
Straight factual questions	just answer directly
Obvious execution tasks	just do the task

Roles

Voice	Lens
Architect	correctness, maintainability, long-term implications
Skeptic	premise challenge, simplification, assumption breaking
Pragmatist	shipping speed, user impact, operational reality
Critic	edge cases, downside risk, failure modes

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]

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

### Verdict
- **Consensus:** [where they align]
- **Strongest dissent:** [most important disagreement]
- **Premise check:** [did the Skeptic challenge the question itself?]
- **Recommendation:** [the synthesized path]

Keep it scannable on a phone screen.

Persistence Rule

Do not write ad-hoc notes to ~/.codex/notes or other shadow paths from this skill.

If the council materially changes the recommendation:

• use knowledge-ops to store the lesson in the right durable location
• or use /save-session if the outcome belongs in session memory
• or update the relevant GitHub / Linear issue directly if the decision changes active execution truth

Only persist a decision when it changes something real.

Multi-Round Follow-up

Default is one round.

If the user wants another round:

• keep the new question focused
• include the previous verdict only if it is necessary
• keep the Skeptic as clean as possible to preserve anti-anchoring value

Anti-Patterns

• using council for code review
• using council when the task is just implementation work
• feeding the subagents the entire conversation transcript
• hiding disagreement in the final verdict
• persisting every decision as a note regardless of importance

Related Skills

• santa-method — adversarial verification
• knowledge-ops — persist durable decision deltas correctly
• search-first — gather external reference material before the council if needed
• architecture-decision-records — formalize the outcome when the decision becomes long-lived system policy

Example

Question:

Should we ship ecc 2.0 as alpha now, or hold until the control-plane UI is more complete?

Likely council shape:

• Architect pushes for structural integrity and avoiding a confused surface
• Skeptic questions whether the UI is actually the gating factor
• Pragmatist asks what can be shipped now without harming trust
• Critic focuses on support burden, expectation debt, and rollout confusion

The value is not unanimity. The value is making the disagreement legible before choosing.