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claude-codeproductivity

Agentops council

Multi-model consensus council. Spawns parallel judges with configurable perspectives. Modes: validate, brainstorm, research. Triggers: "council", "get consensus", "multi-model review", "multi-perspective review", "council validate", "council brainstorm", "council research".

install
source · Clone the upstream repo
git clone https://github.com/boshu2/agentops
Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/
T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/boshu2/agentops "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/council" ~/.claude/skills/boshu2-agentops-council-18410d && rm -rf "$T"
manifest: skills/council/SKILL.md
tags
#multi-agent#consensus#review#validation#brainstorming#research
source content

/council — Multi-Model Consensus Council

Spawn parallel judges with different perspectives, consolidate into consensus. Works for any task — validation, research, brainstorming.

Quick Start

/council --quick validate recent                               # fast inline check
/council validate this plan                                    # validation (2 agents)
/council brainstorm caching approaches                         # brainstorm
/council research kubernetes upgrade strategies                # research
/council --preset=security-audit validate the auth system      # preset personas
/council --deep --explorers=3 research upgrade automation      # deep + explorers
/council --debate validate the auth system                     # adversarial 2-round review
/council                                                       # infers from context

Council works independently — no RPI workflow, no ratchet chain, no 

ao
CLI required.

Modes

ModeAgentsExecution BackendUse Case
--quick
0 (inline)SelfFast single-agent check, no spawning
default2Runtime-native (Codex sub-agents preferred; Claude teams fallback)Independent judges (no perspective labels)
--deep
3Runtime-nativeThorough review
--mixed
3+3Runtime-native + Codex CLICross-vendor consensus
--debate
2+Runtime-nativeAdversarial refinement (2 rounds)

Spawn Backend (MANDATORY)

Council requires a runtime that can spawn parallel subagents and (for 

--debate
) send messages between agents. Use whatever multi-agent primitives your runtime provides. If no multi-agent capability is detected, fall back to 
--quick
(inline single-agent).

Required capabilities:

  • Spawn subagent — create a parallel agent with a prompt (required for all modes except 
    --quick
    )
  • Agent messaging — send a message to a specific agent (required for 
    --debate
    )

Skills describe WHAT to do, not WHICH tool to call. See 

skills/shared/SKILL.md
for the capability contract.

After detecting your backend, read the matching reference for concrete spawn/wait/message/cleanup examples:

  • Shared Claude feature contract → 
    skills/shared/references/claude-code-latest-features.md
  • Local mirrored contract for runtime-local reads → 
    references/claude-code-latest-features.md
  • Claude Native Teams → 
    references/backend-claude-teams.md
  • Codex Sub-Agents / CLI → 
    references/backend-codex-subagents.md
  • Background Tasks → 
    references/backend-background-tasks.md
  • Inline (
    --quick
    ) → 
    references/backend-inline.md

See also 

references/cli-spawning.md
for council-specific spawning flow (phases, timeouts, output collection).

When to Use 
--debate

Use 

--debate
for high-stakes or ambiguous reviews where judges are likely to disagree:

  • Security audits, architecture decisions, migration plans
  • Reviews where multiple valid perspectives exist
  • Cases where a missed finding has real consequences

Skip 

--debate
for routine validation where consensus is expected. Debate adds R2 latency (judges stay alive and process a second round via backend messaging).

Incompatibilities:

  • --quick
    and 
    --debate
    cannot be combined. 
    --quick
    runs inline with no spawning; 
    --debate
    requires multi-agent rounds. If both are passed, exit with error: "Error: --quick and --debate are incompatible."
  • --debate
    is only supported with validate mode. Brainstorm and research do not produce PASS/WARN/FAIL verdicts. If combined, exit with error: "Error: --debate is only supported with validate mode."

Task Types

Council infers task type from natural language. Trigger words: validate (validate, check, review, assess, critique, feedback, improve), brainstorm (brainstorm, explore, options, approaches), research (research, investigate, deep dive, analyze, examine, evaluate, compare).

See references/task-type-rigor-gate.md for the trigger-word table, the MANDATORY first-pass rigor gate for plan/spec validation, and the full 

--quick
single-agent inline mode contract.

Architecture

See references/architecture-flow.md for the context-budget rule, full Phase 1→3 execution flow diagram, reviewer-config loading, graceful degradation table, effort levels, and pre-flight checks.

Packet Format (JSON)

See references/packet-format.md for the full JSON packet schema (fields, output_schema, judge-prompt boundary rules) and the Empirical Evidence Rule for feasibility reviews.

Perspectives

Perspectives & Presets: Use 

Read
tool on 
skills/council/references/personas.md
for persona definitions, preset configurations, and custom perspective details.

Auto-Escalation: When 

--preset
or 
--perspectives
specifies more perspectives than the current judge count, automatically escalate judge count to match. The 
--count
flag overrides auto-escalation.

Named Perspectives & Consensus

See references/consensus-and-output.md for named-perspective usage (

--perspectives
, 
--perspectives-file
, YAML format, flag priority), consensus verdict rules (PASS/WARN/FAIL combination table, DISAGREE resolution), and the finding-extraction flywheel protocol. See references/personas.md for built-in presets.

Explorer Sub-Agents

Explorer Details: Use 

Read
tool on 
skills/council/references/explorers.md
for explorer architecture, prompts, sub-question generation, and timeout configuration.

Summary: Judges can spawn explorer sub-agents (

--explorers=N
, max 5) for parallel deep-dive research. Total agents = 
judges * (1 + explorers)
, capped at MAX_AGENTS=12.

Debate Phase (
--debate
)

Debate Protocol: Use 

Read
tool on 
skills/council/references/debate-protocol.md
for full debate execution flow, R1-to-R2 verdict injection, timeout handling, and cost analysis.

Summary: Two-round adversarial review. R1 produces independent verdicts. R2 sends other judges' verdicts via backend messaging (

send_input
or 
SendMessage
) for steel-manning and revision. Only supported with validate mode.

Agent Prompts

Agent Prompts: Use 

Read
tool on 
skills/council/references/agent-prompts.md
for judge prompts (default and perspective-based), consolidation prompt, and debate R2 message template.

Output Format & Consensus Rules

Consensus verdict combination rules, DISAGREE handling, and the finding-extraction flywheel protocol live in references/consensus-and-output.md. Full report templates (validate, brainstorm, research) and debate-report additions live in references/output-format.md. All reports write to 

.agents/council/YYYY-MM-DD-<type>-<target>.md
. Findings extraction targets 
.agents/council/extraction-candidates.jsonl
; see references/finding-extraction.md for schema and classification heuristics.

Core consensus rules: All PASS -> PASS; Any FAIL -> FAIL; Mixed PASS/WARN -> WARN; cross-vendor disagreement -> DISAGREE.

Configuration

Minimum quorum: 1 agent. Recommended: 80% of judges. On timeout, proceed with remaining judges and note in report. On user cancellation, shutdown all judges and generate partial report with INCOMPLETE marker.

Env varDefault
COUNCIL_CLAUDE_MODEL
sonnet
COUNCIL_EXPLORER_MODEL
sonnet
COUNCIL_CODEX_MODEL
gpt-5.3-codex
COUNCIL_TIMEOUT
120
COUNCIL_EXPLORER_TIMEOUT
60
COUNCIL_R2_TIMEOUT
90
FlagDescription
--technique=<name>
Brainstorm technique (reverse, scamper, six-hats). See 
references/brainstorm-techniques.md
.
--profile=<name>
Model quality profile (balanced, budget, fast, inherit, quality, thorough). See 
references/model-profiles.md
.

See references/flags-reference.md for the full flag and environment variable reference (

COUNCIL_TIMEOUT
, 
COUNCIL_CODEX_MODEL
, 
--deep
, 
--mixed
, 
--debate
, 
--evidence
, 
--commit-ready
, 
--preset
, 
--profile
, and all other flags).

CLI Spawning Commands

CLI Spawning: Use 

Read
tool on 
skills/council/references/cli-spawning.md
for team setup, Claude/Codex agent spawning, parallel execution, debate R2 commands, cleanup, and model selection.

Examples

See references/examples-extended.md for the full example catalog and walkthroughs (fast single-agent validation, adversarial debate, cross-vendor consensus with explorers).

Troubleshooting

See references/troubleshooting.md for common error messages, causes, and solutions, plus the judge→council migration table.

Multi-Agent Architecture

See references/multi-agent-architecture.md for the deliberation protocol, communication rules, Ralph Wiggum compliance, degradation behavior, and judge naming convention.

See Also

  • skills/vibe/SKILL.md
    — Complexity + council for code validation (uses 
    --preset=code-review
    when spec found)
  • skills/pre-mortem/SKILL.md
    — Plan validation (uses 
    --preset=plan-review
    , always 3 judges)
  • skills/post-mortem/SKILL.md
    — Work wrap-up (uses 
    --preset=retrospective
    , always 3 judges + retro)
  • skills/swarm/SKILL.md
    — Multi-agent orchestration
  • skills/standards/SKILL.md
    — Language-specific coding standards
  • skills/research/SKILL.md
    — Codebase exploration (complementary to council research mode)

Reference Documents