council

name	council
description	3-Opus adversarial debate (proposer / critic / judge) for architectural decisions. Use when a decision is irreversible and benefits from explicit adversarial framing.

/council — adversarial debate with roles

Three Opus instances with explicit roles run in parallel and then in sequence:

• Proposer — makes the strongest case FOR a specific position.
• Critic — makes the strongest case AGAINST any obvious position. Finds holes, edge cases, costs, alternative framings.
• Judge — weighs both, renders a final decision with rationale + flip conditions.

Proposer and critic run in parallel; judge runs after fan-in.

When to use

• Architectural decisions you can't easily reverse (database choice, framework migration, contract redesign).
• High-stakes questions where the obvious answer might be wrong.
• When you've drafted a plan and want a sanity-check before committing.

When NOT to use

• Routine choices — overkill.
• Time-sensitive decisions — council takes ~3× a single Opus pass.
• Questions of pure fact — that's /deepresearch.

Cost

3 Opus invocations in parallel + 1 sequential judge = ~4× a single Opus call. Cheap relative to a wrong architectural decision.

Distinct from

• /hive — N drafters merged into one answer; no adversarial framing.
• /audit — finds holes in existing code; council finds holes in proposed plans.