Fstack Counselors

/fstack-counselors

A council of three models on one question. Each counselor answers independently, then the answers get compared and resolved into one definitive recommendation — with each counselor's opinion summarized, especially where they disagree.

When to use

• A decision is big enough that one model's opinion is not enough.
• Architecture choices, tricky trade-offs, "should we do X or Y" questions.
• You want a second opinion on a plan, a diff, or a design before committing to it.

Steps

1. Turn the question into one self-contained brief: the question, the relevant context (files, constraints, what was already tried), and the answer format you want. Every counselor gets this exact brief and nothing else.
2. Pick the council: the 3 most capable models available in this environment. Tell the user who is on the council before dispatching. If the environment cannot mix models, run 3 independent sessions of the best one — independent runs still surface disagreement. If the environment cannot run independent agents at all, say so and answer directly. Never fake a council.
3. Set the effort level. If the user asked for one, use it. If they did not, default to medium / balanced reasoning — good thinking without the full cost and latency. Raise it to the highest level only when the user says so or the question is clearly high-stakes.
4. Dispatch the same brief to each counselor, in parallel and read-only. No counselor sees another's answer.
5. Read all three answers. Map where they agree and where they disagree.
6. Deliver the result in two parts:
   • The verdict. One definitive answer. When the counselors disagree, pick a side and say why — do not average.
   • The council. One summary per counselor, 2 to 3 lines each, model named. Flag every disagreement and how the verdict resolves it. A 2–1 split is reported as 2–1.
7. Stop. Acting on the verdict is a separate decision. If the user wants to build, suggest /fstack-plan or /fstack-build.

Must NOT

• Let counselors see each other's answers before giving their own. Independence is the whole point.
• Average disagreement into mush. "All approaches have merit" is not a verdict.
• Hide dissent. If one counselor disagrees, the user hears about it and why.
• Let counselors change files. The council reads and opines; it never writes.
• Convene the council for trivial questions. Three models on "what should I name this variable" is waste.

Example

User: /fstack-counselors should we move auth from server sessions to JWTs?

Agent: "Council: [the 3 strongest models available here]. Sending each the same brief: your auth code, the scaling constraint you mentioned, and the question. Back in a few minutes."

(three independent answers come back)

Agent: "Verdict: keep server sessions. The council split 2–1.

Counselor 1 — keep sessions. Your app is server-rendered with one backend; JWTs add revocation problems and solve a distribution problem you do not have.

Counselor 2 — keep sessions, same core reason. Adds: if the API later needs tokens, mint short-lived ones from the session rather than switching wholesale.

Counselor 3 — move to JWTs, arguing for the future multi-service case. I sided against because that case is hypothetical and the revocation cost is immediate.

Want this turned into a note in the plan, or leave it as a decision?"

Credit

This distills the council-of-advisors pattern from counselors by Aaron Francis. His CLI fans a prompt out to locally installed agent CLIs; this skill uses whatever your environment already has. If the counselors CLI is installed, it is a fine way to run the fan-out.