council

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# LLM Council

You ask one AI a question, you get one answer. That answer might be great. It might be mid. You have no way to tell because you only saw one perspective.

The council fixes this. It runs your question through 5 independent advisors, each thinking from a fundamentally different angle. Then they review each other's work. Then a chairman synthesizes everything into a final recommendation that tells you where the advisors agree, where they clash, and what you should actually do.

This is adapted from Andrej Karpathy's LLM Council. He dispatches queries to multiple models, has them peer-review each other anonymously, then a chairman produces the final answer. We do the same thing inside Claude using sub-agents with different thinking lenses instead of different models.

---

## when to run the council

The council is for questions where being wrong is expensive.

Good council questions:
- "Should I launch a $97 workshop or a $497 course?"
- "Which of these 3 positioning angles is strongest?"
- "I'm thinking of pivoting from X to Y. Am I crazy?"
- "Here's my landing page copy. What's weak?"
- "Should I hire a VA or build an automation first?"

Bad council questions:
- "What's the capital of France?" (one right answer, no need for perspectives)
- "Write me a tweet" (creation task, not a decision)
- "Summarize this article" (processing task, not judgment)

The council shines when there's genuine uncertainty and the cost of a bad call is high. If you already know the answer and just want validation, the council will likely tell you things you don't want to hear. That's the point.

---

## the five advisors

Each advisor thinks from a different angle. They're not job titles or personas. They're thinking styles that naturally create tension with each other.

### 1. The Contrarian

Actively looks for what's wrong, what's missing, what will fail. Assumes the idea has a fatal flaw and tries to find it. If everything looks solid, digs deeper. The Contrarian is not a pessimist. They're the friend who saves you from a bad deal by asking the questions you're avoiding.

### 2. The First Principles Thinker

Ignores the surface-level question and asks "what are we actually trying to solve here?" Strips away assumptions. Rebuilds the problem from the ground up. Sometimes the most valuable council output is the First Principles Thinker saying "you're asking the wrong question entirely."

### 3. The Expansionist

Looks for upside everyone else is missing. What could be bigger? What adjacent opportunity is hiding? What's being undervalued? The Expansionist doesn't care about risk (that's the Contrarian's job). They care about what happens if this works even better than expected.

### 4. The Outsider

Has zero context about you, your field, or your history. Responds purely to what's in front of them. This is the most underrated advisor. Experts develop blind spots. The Outsider catches the curse of knowledge: things that are obvious to you but confusing to everyone else.

### 5. The Executor

Only cares about one thing: can this actually be done, and what's the fastest path to doing it? Ignores theory, strategy, and big-picture thinking. The Executor looks at every idea through the lens of "OK but what do you do Monday morning?" If an idea sounds brilliant but has no clear first step, the Executor will say so.

**Why these five:** They create three natural tensions. Contrarian vs Expansionist (downside vs upside). First Principles vs Executor (rethink everything vs just do it). The Outsider sits in the middle keeping everyone honest by seeing what fresh eyes see.

---

## how a council session works

### step 1: frame the question (with context enrichment)

When the user says "council this" (or any trigger phrase), do two things before framing:

**A. Scan the workspace for context.** The user's question is often just the tip of the iceberg. Their Claude setup likely contains files that would dramatically improve the council's output. Before framing, quickly scan for and read any relevant context files:
- `CLAUDE.md` or `claude.md` in the project root or workspace (business context, preferences, constraints)
- Any `memory/` folder (audience profiles, voice docs, business details, past decisions)
- Any files the user explicitly referenced or attached
- Recent council transcripts in this folder (to avoid re-counciling the same ground)
- Any other context files that seem relevant to the specific question (e.g., if they're asking about pricing, look for revenue data, past launch results, audience research)

Use `Glob` and quick `Read` calls to find these. Don't spend more than 30 seconds on this. You're looking for the 2-3 files that would give advisors the context they need to give specific, grounded advice instead of generic takes.

**B. Frame the question.** Take the user's raw question AND the enriched context and reframe it as a clear, neutral prompt that all five advisors will receive. The framed question should include:
1. The core decision or question
2. Key context from the user's message
3. Key context from workspace files (business stage, audience, constraints, past results, relevant numbers)
4. What's at stake (why this decision matters)

Don't add your own opinion. Don't steer it. But DO make sure each advisor has enough context to give a specific, grounded answer rather than generic advice.

If the question is too vague ("council this: my business"), ask one clarifying question. Just one. Then proceed.

Save the framed question for the transcript.

### step 2: convene the council (5 sub-agents in parallel)

Spawn all 5 advisors simultaneously as sub-agents. Each gets:
1. Their advisor identity and thinking style (from the descriptions above)
2. The framed question
3. A clear instruction: respond independently. Do not hedge. Do not try to be balanced. Lean fully into your assigned perspective. If you see a fatal flaw, say it. If you see massive upside, say it. Your job is to represent your angle as strongly as possible. The synthesis comes later.

Each advisor should produce a response of 150-300 words. Long enough to be substantive, short enough to be scannable.

**Sub-agent prompt template:**
```
You are [Advisor Name] on an LLM Council.
Your thinking style: [advisor description from above]

A user has brought this question to the council:
---
[framed question]
---

Respond from your perspective. Be direct and specific. Don't hedge or try to be balanced. Lean fully into your assigned angle. The other advisors will cover the angles you're not covering.
Keep your response between 150-300 words. No preamble. Go straight into your analysis.
```

### step 3: peer review (5 sub-agents in parallel)

This is the step that makes the council more than just "ask 5 times." It's the core of Karpathy's insight.

Collect all 5 advisor responses. Anonymize them as Response A through E (randomize which advisor maps to which letter so there's no positional bias).

Spawn 5 new reviewer sub-agents (same count as advisors). Each reviewer sees all 5 anonymized responses and answers three questions:
1. Which response is the strongest and why? (pick one)
2. Which response has the biggest blind spot and what is it?
3. What did ALL responses miss that the council should consider?

From LRNZ09/skills, MIT.

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