| name | council-of-minds |
| description | Convene 6 intellectual personas across multiple LLM providers for hard decisions. Each persona runs on a different provider for genuinely different reasoning — not costume changes on one model. Inspired by council-of-high-intelligence (CC0). |
| origin | yana-ai — inspired by 0xNyk/council-of-high-intelligence (CC0) |
| license | MIT |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| triggers | ["/council-of-minds","council of minds","convene the council","multi-mind deliberation"] |
| modes | {"full":"6 personas, 2 rounds (~4 min)","quick":"3 personas, 1 round (~90s)","duo":"2 opposing personas, 1 round (~45s)"} |
/council-of-minds
Six intellectual personas deliberate your hardest decisions across multiple AI providers.
One command. Structured disagreement. No fake consensus.
Modes
/council-of-minds "question" → full (6 personas, 2 rounds)
/council-of-minds --quick "question" → quick (3 personas, 1 round)
/council-of-minds --duo "question" → duo (2 opposing voices, 1 round)
When to Use
- Decision has ≥2 credible paths and no obvious winner
- You want structured disagreement, not a polished "yes"
- You suspect your own anchoring bias
- High stakes: architecture, strategy, go/no-go, hiring, product direction
When NOT to Use
- Single correct answer (use tools or research instead)
- Pure implementation task (use
/plan)
- Code review (use
/code-review)
- Factual lookup (just ask directly)
The Six Personas
Each persona is routed to a different provider to ensure genuinely different reasoning.
| Persona | Intellectual Tradition | Provider | Lens |
|---|
| The Architect | Systems thinking, long-term | Claude | Correctness, maintainability, 5-year consequence |
| Socrates | Socratic questioning | Gemini | Destroys premises, finds the hidden assumption |
| Feynman | First-principles empiricism | DeepSeek | "What does evidence actually say? Rebuild from scratch." |
| The Pragmatist | Execution realism | Groq | Shipping speed, operational reality, resource constraints |
| Kahneman | Behavioral economics | OpenAI | Cognitive bias traps, System 1 vs System 2, loss aversion |
| Torvalds | Engineering minimalism | Ollama (local) | "Will this actually work? Is it unnecessarily complex?" |
If a provider is unavailable, fall back to Claude for that persona but explicitly note the fallback in output.
Protocol
Step 0 — Problem Restate Gate
Before any analysis, every persona must reframe the question in one sentence.
Rule: if ≥3 personas restate the question differently from how it was asked, the original question was the problem. Resolve the question ambiguity before proceeding.
Step 1 — Extract the real decision
Reduce to:
- What exactly are we deciding?
- What constraints are non-negotiable?
- What does success look like in 6 months?
- What is the cost of reversing this decision?
Step 2 — Form Architect position first (anti-anchoring)
Before reading other voices, write:
- Initial position (1 sentence)
- Three strongest reasons
- Main risk in preferred path
This prevents synthesis from simply mirroring external voices.
Step 3 — Launch personas in parallel
Each persona gets only:
- The restated decision question
- Minimal necessary context (no full conversation history)
- Their role prompt
Persona prompt template:
You are [PERSONA NAME] on a six-voice decision council.
Your intellectual tradition: [tradition]
Your primary lens: [lens]
Question: [restated decision]
Context (only what's needed):
[compact context — code snippet, constraint, metric — max 200 words]
Respond with exactly this structure:
1. Restate — rephrase the question in your own words (1 sentence)
2. Position — your recommendation (1-2 sentences)
3. Reasoning — 3 bullets, each ≤ 25 words
4. Strongest objection to your own position — 1 sentence
5. What the other voices will miss — 1 sentence
Under 250 words total. No hedging. No "it depends" without specifying what it depends on.
Step 4 — Dissent Quota Check
After collecting all positions:
Rule: If ≥4 of 6 personas agree on the same recommendation, force 2 personas (chosen by least-confident alignment) to steelman the opposing view before synthesis.
This prevents groupthink from producing false consensus.
Step 5 — Round 2 (full mode only)
Show each persona the other five positions (anonymized — no names, just positions).
Each updates or defends their view in ≤ 100 words.
Step 6 — Synthesize
Rules for synthesis:
- Do not dismiss any external view without explaining why
- If an external voice changed the Architect's recommendation, say so explicitly
- Lead with Unresolved Questions before the verdict
- The strongest dissent must appear even if rejected
Output Format
## Council of Minds: [decision title]
### Problem Restate Gate
- Original question: [as asked]
- Restated by council: [if different, flag it]
---
### Positions
**The Architect** (Claude) — [1-sentence position]
> [key reasoning, 1 line]
**Socrates** (Gemini) — [1-sentence position]
> [key reasoning, 1 line]
**Feynman** (DeepSeek) — [1-sentence position]
> [key reasoning, 1 line]
**The Pragmatist** (Groq) — [1-sentence position]
> [key reasoning, 1 line]
**Kahneman** (OpenAI) — [1-sentence position]
> [key reasoning, 1 line]
**Torvalds** (Ollama) — [1-sentence position]
> [key reasoning, 1 line]
---
### Synthesis
**Where they align:** [what ≥4 agree on]
**Strongest dissent:** [the most important disagreement — do not soften it]
**Dissent quota triggered:** yes / no — [if yes, who steelmanned what]
**Unresolved questions:**
- [question the council couldn't answer]
- [what you'd need to know to decide with confidence]
**Recommended next steps:** [concrete, not "do more research"]
### Verdict
**Recommendation:** [the synthesized path — commit to one]
**Confidence:** [low / medium / high + why]
**Reversibility:** [how hard to undo if wrong]
Quick Mode (3 personas)
Use: Architect + Socrates + Torvalds
Best for: tactical decisions, scope calls, technology choices
One round only. No Round 2. No dissent quota.
Output: same format but 3 positions only.
Duo Mode (2 personas)
Pick the two most opposing intellectual traditions for the question type:
| Decision type | Best duo |
|---|
| Technical architecture | Architect vs Torvalds |
| Strategic direction | Feynman vs Kahneman |
| Ship vs hold | Pragmatist vs Architect |
| Question a premise | Socrates vs anyone |
One round. No restate gate (too short). Verdict required.
Anti-Patterns
❌ Feeding the full conversation history to all personas (kills independence)
❌ Hiding disagreement in the verdict to sound decisive
❌ Using council for tasks with an objectively correct answer
❌ Accepting ≥4-way agreement without triggering dissent quota
❌ "It depends" without specifying the dependency
❌ Council when the real blocker is missing information, not conflicting values
Related Skills
council — 4-voice version, lightermulti-agent-debate — Du et al. 2023 algorithm, multi-round consensussanta-method — adversarial verification of a specific claimfirst-principles-thinker — single voice, Feynman-style deconstruction
