council

name	council
description	Run multi-LLM council for adversarial debate and cross-validation. Use it for implementation, architecture, review, security, research, and planning tasks with the canonical llm-council subagents and modes.

LLM Council Skill (v0.7.18)

Multi-model council: parallel drafts, adversarial critique, validated synthesis.

This skill requires the the-llm-council package to be installed. The skill provides the agent-side interface; actual runs happen through the installed council CLI.

Setup

Install the package:

pip install 'the-llm-council>=0.7.18'

Optional extras:

pip install 'the-llm-council[anthropic,openai,gemini]>=0.7.18'
pip install 'the-llm-council[vertex]>=0.7.18'

Configure at least one provider key:

Provider	Environment Variable
OpenRouter	OPENROUTER_API_KEY
OpenAI	OPENAI_API_KEY
Anthropic	ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
Gemini API	GOOGLE_API_KEY or GEMINI_API_KEY
Vertex AI	GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT or ANTHROPIC_VERTEX_PROJECT_ID + ADC

Verify what is usable in the current shell:

council doctor
council doctor --deep --provider claude --provider gemini-cli --provider codex

Canonical Surface

council run <subagent> [--mode <mode>] "<task>" [options]

Primary subagents:

Subagent	Modes	Use for
drafter	impl, arch, test	implementation, architecture, tests
critic	review, security	code review and security analysis
planner	plan, assess	execution plans and decision assessments
researcher	—	research with sources and evidence
router	—	task classification and routed handoff
synthesizer	—	final merged output

Legacy aliases such as implementer, architect, reviewer, red-team, assessor, test-designer, and shipper still work, but they are no longer the preferred interface.

Common Commands

# Implementation
council run drafter --mode impl "Add pagination to users API"

# Architecture
council run drafter --mode arch "Design a caching layer"

# Tests
council run drafter --mode test "Design tests for cursor pagination"

# Review
council run critic --mode review "Review auth changes"

# Security
council run critic --mode security "Analyze auth system vulnerabilities"

# Planning
council run planner --mode plan "Plan MongoDB to PostgreSQL migration"

# Assessment
council run planner --mode assess "Redis vs Memcached for sessions"

# Research
council run researcher "Research WebSocket libraries for Node.js"

# Router handoff
council run router "Should we buy or build auth?" --route

Useful Options

Option	Purpose
--mode <mode>	Select a runtime mode for drafter, critic, or planner
--json	Return structured JSON
--verbose	Show resolved execution details and council phases
--providers	Explicit provider list. Omit to use config defaults
--models	Explicit model list
--runtime-profile bounded	Lower latency and token budgets
`--reasoning-profile off	light`
--route	Follow a router decision into the chosen subagent/mode
--files	Add file context to the task
--dry-run	Show the resolved plan without executing
--schema	Use a custom output schema

Provider Names

Canonical provider names:

• openrouter
• openai
• anthropic
• gemini
• gemini-cli
• vertex-ai
• claude
• codex

User-selected providers and models should be respected. Health checks and deep doctor probes are for diagnostics, not for silently overriding explicit configuration.

When To Use It

Use council for:

• non-trivial implementation work
• architecture and system design
• code review and security analysis
• planning and build-vs-buy style decisions
• research that benefits from multiple models critiquing each other

Skip it for:

• trivial one-line edits
• simple lookups
• tasks where a single direct model call is clearly enough