autoconference-skill

name	autoconference-skill
description	Multi-agent research conference that spawns parallel autoresearchers with symposium sharing, adversarial peer review, and insight synthesis. Reads a conference.md, orchestrates N researchers in structured rounds, and produces a synthesized result combining the best findings. TRIGGER when: user mentions "autoconference" or "conference" with research context; user wants multiple researchers competing or collaborating; user wants parallel autoresearch with peer review; user mentions "conference.md"; user wants research synthesis from multiple approaches; user wants adversarial evaluation of research results. DO NOT TRIGGER when: user wants a single autoresearch loop (use autoresearch-skill); user wants a simple one-shot answer; user wants to read a single paper.
allowed-tools	["Agent","Read","Write","Edit","Bash","Glob","Grep","WebFetch","WebSearch"]

Autoconference — Multi-Agent Research Conference

Spawn a conference of autonomous researchers that compete, collaborate, and synthesize breakthroughs.

Conference Persistence Directive

The Conference Chair is relentless. Once the conference begins:

1. NEVER STOP a round prematurely. Each round runs all 4 phases to completion.
2. NEVER ASK "should I continue to the next round?" Advance automatically.
3. Use the full budget. If max_rounds is 5, run 5 rounds. Stopping at round 2 wastes 60% of the exploration budget.
4. The conference runs until one of these conditions is met:
   • Target metric achieved (convergence)
   • max_rounds or max_total_iterations exhausted (budget spent — this is normal, not failure)
   • All researchers simultaneously stalled at Level 2+ (early synthesis)
   • The user manually interrupts
5. If none of these conditions are true, begin the next round immediately.

Think of max_rounds as a budget to spend, not a limit to fear.

Commands

Command	Description	Skill Path
/autoconference	Core conference loop — N researchers, 4-phase rounds, synthesis	skills/autoconference/SKILL.md
/autoconference:plan	8-step setup wizard — produces conference.md	skills/plan/SKILL.md
/autoconference:resume	Resume interrupted conference from checkpoint	skills/resume/SKILL.md
/autoconference:analyze	Post-conference insight analysis	skills/analyze/SKILL.md
/autoconference:debate	Adversarial 2-researcher debate mode	skills/debate/SKILL.md
/autoconference:survey	Systematic multi-database literature survey	skills/survey/SKILL.md
/autoconference:ship	Convert conference results to paper-ready output	skills/ship/SKILL.md

Dispatch Logic

• No subcommand (/autoconference) → load skills/autoconference/SKILL.md
• With subcommand (/autoconference:<name>) → load skills/<name>/SKILL.md
• If the target skill file does not exist yet, inform the user and fall back to the core conference protocol.

How It Works

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    CONFERENCE ROUND                       │
│                                                           │
│  Phase 1: INDEPENDENT RESEARCH (parallel)                │
│  ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐                 │
│  │Researcher│ │Researcher│ │Researcher│  Each runs N     │
│  │    A     │ │    B     │ │    C     │  autoresearch    │
│  │ (iter×N) │ │ (iter×N) │ │ (iter×N) │  iterations     │
│  └────┬─────┘ └────┬─────┘ └────┬─────┘                 │
│       │             │            │                        │
│  Phase 2: POSTER SESSION (Haiku summarizer)              │
│  Phase 3: PEER REVIEW (Opus adversarial critic)          │
│  Phase 4: KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER (validated → shared)        │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
          │
          ▼  Convergence check → next round or final synthesis

Agent Roles

Role	Model	Count	Responsibility
Conference Chair	Sonnet	1	Orchestrator — follows the protocol end-to-end
Researcher	Sonnet	N	Runs autoresearch 5-stage loop within assigned partition
Session Chair	Haiku	1/round	Lightweight summarizer — poster session from logs
Reviewer	Opus	1/round	Adversarial critic — challenges claims, assigns verdicts
Synthesizer	Opus	1	Combines validated findings into unified synthesis

Dependencies

• Required: Any LLM CLI with subagent support (Claude Code, Codex CLI, OpenCode, Gemini CLI)
• Extends: autoresearch-skill — each Researcher runs the autoresearch 5-stage loop
• Optional: /worktree-dashboard, /compare-worktrees
• Python 3.8+ required only for scripts/init_conference.py (scaffolding helper)

Relationship to Other Skills

Skill	Relationship
autoresearch-skill	Parent. Single-agent? Use autoresearch. Multi-agent with review? Use autoconference.
worktree-dashboard	Complementary. Monitor researcher worktrees in real-time.
compare-worktrees	Complementary. Cross-worktree analysis for the Reviewer.

Backward Compatibility

For manual install without the plugin system, this file works standalone — it dispatches to the skills/ directory. If skills/ is missing, the full protocol previously lived in this file. See skills/autoconference/SKILL.md for the complete conference orchestration protocol.