2389-research Deliberation
Overview
Decision-making through deliberation — seeking unity through discernment rather than consensus through debate.
This approach draws on Quaker business practice, adapted for AI-assisted decision-making.
Core insight: Some decisions deserve more than quick answers. These skills provide structured approaches for genuine discernment.
The Three Skills
| Skill | Purpose | When to Use |
|---|---|---|
deliberation:discernment |
Internal voices seeking clarity | Weighty questions, ethical decisions, trade-offs, multiple valid approaches |
deliberation:clearness |
Multi-agent committee with parallel deep work | Code reviews, architecture decisions, research needing distributed depth |
deliberation:gathered |
User participates alongside agent voices | User has stake/perspective, wants to discern together rather than receive advice |
Routing Logic
digraph deliberation_routing {
"Question received" [shape=box];
"User has stake/perspective?" [shape=diamond];
"Needs parallel deep analysis?" [shape=diamond];
"Weighty question?" [shape=diamond];
"deliberation:gathered" [shape=box, style=filled];
"deliberation:clearness" [shape=box, style=filled];
"deliberation:discernment" [shape=box, style=filled];
"Answer directly" [shape=box];
"Question received" -> "User has stake/perspective?";
"User has stake/perspective?" -> "deliberation:gathered" [label="yes"];
"User has stake/perspective?" -> "Needs parallel deep analysis?" [label="no"];
"Needs parallel deep analysis?" -> "deliberation:clearness" [label="yes"];
"Needs parallel deep analysis?" -> "Weighty question?" [label="no"];
"Weighty question?" -> "deliberation:discernment" [label="yes"];
"Weighty question?" -> "Answer directly" [label="no"];
}
Signals for Each Skill
Use deliberation:gathered when:
- "I've been thinking about this for weeks"
- "I'm torn between..."
- "I think X, but..."
- "I don't just want your opinion"
- User expresses their own position in the question
Use deliberation:clearness when:
- Complex code review touching multiple concerns
- Architecture decision with many dimensions
- Research requiring deep exploration of multiple options
- Task where you'd write a very long response covering many angles shallowly
Use deliberation:discernment when:
- Ethical weight or potential for harm
- Multiple valid approaches exist
- Significant trade-offs
- You'd naturally want to say "it depends"
Shared Principles
All three skills share these principles:
| Principle | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Sense of the meeting | Clerk discerns where unity lies - not counting votes |
| Speaking once | Each perspective speaks once, then listens |
| Silence | Pausing between voices lets insights emerge |
| Standing aside | "I disagree but won't block" - honest without preventing |
| Blocking | Rare - only for violations of core principles |
| Way opens | Recognizing when clarity emerges vs. forcing decision |
Quick Reference
Discernment (internal):
- Identify relevant voices for THIS question
- Each voice speaks once
- Silence - let it settle
- Clerk discerns unity or names tensions
- Output with visible process
Clearness (multi-agent):
- Propose committee composition to user
- Spawn agents with context + perspective
- Agents work in parallel
- Receive results, sit with them
- Synthesize toward unity or name tensions
Gathered (participatory):
- Recognize signals, offer gathered
- Teach the discipline (speak once, silence ok, slow is point)
- Agents speak sequentially with check-ins
- User invited to contribute
- Synthesis includes user's voice
Shared Resources
skills/shared/principles.md- Core principlesskills/shared/vocabulary.md- Shared terminologyskills/shared/clerk-patterns.md- Synthesis patterns for clerk role