Ccc Debate

/ccc-debate — Adversarial Multi-Agent Debate (Antfooding)

Debate mode pits N agents against each other on a single design, plan, or diff. Each argues from a distinct lens (security, performance, maintainability, product, contrarian), critiques the others' positions, and the strongest objections survive. A judge synthesizes a single ruled verdict. This is antfooding — you stress-test your own work by adversarially eating it before reality does.

CC Commander · Debate Mode · Docs

Debate is the dialectic expression of the canonical workflow-first doctrine (commander/cowork-plugin/rules/workflow-first.md): delegate the arguing, keep the ruling. Built on the Workflow tool + dialectic-review + /ccc-fleet mode: "debate".

What debate is

/ccc-debate runs a structured adversarial loop:

1. Fan out lenses — Claude spawns one agent per lens via the Workflow tool. Each independently reads the target and produces its strongest argument + objections.
2. Cross-examine — agents critique each other's positions. Weak claims get torn down; survivors are the real issues. (Adversarial verification per workflow-first §1.)
3. Iterate until resolved — rounds repeat until no new material objection survives, or a round cap is hit.
4. Synthesize — a judge agent rules: blocking issues, accepted tradeoffs, and a 🟢/🟡/🔴 verdict — conclusions only, no raw transcript dumped into your context.

You keep the deciding. The agents do the arguing.

When to use debate

Use for:

• Expensive-to-reverse design or architecture decisions
• A diff or PR where silent flaws would be costly (auth, billing, migrations)
• Plans worth stress-testing from FOR / AGAINST / Referee angles before committing
• "Am I missing something?" gut-checks on a spec you're about to lock

Skip for:

• Routine edits, single-file fixes, or anything with an obvious answer
• Work where speed beats rigor — debate spends multiple agent passes
• Cases where you have no clear target (no design doc, no diff) to argue about

Token caution: N lenses × M rounds multiplies token spend fast. Scope tight — debate a single design doc or one diff, not the whole repo. Default to 3 lenses, 2 rounds.

One-off without flipping the session

Include the word workflow in your prompt to run a single debate without changing session mode. Examples:

• "Debate this auth design as a workflow"
• "workflow: have agents argue both sides of this migration plan"
• "Run an adversarial debate workflow on the current diff"

Requires CC v2.1.154+

The Workflow tool ships in Claude Code v2.1.154 and later. On older clients, fall back to /ccc-fleet mode: "judge" for a weaker fan-out/synthesize shape (manual dispatch, no lens customization or cross-examination), or the dialectic-review skill for a single FOR/AGAINST/Referee pass. Check: claude --version.

Lens picker

Call AskUserQuestion to let the user choose the debate's lenses (multiSelect):

question: "Which lenses should argue this?"
header: "Debate"
multiSelect: true
options:
  - label: "🔐 Security adversary"
    description: "Assumes hostile input. Hunts auth gaps, injection, trust-boundary breaks."
    preview: "Maps to the security-auditor persona. Best for diffs touching auth/data."
  - label: "⚡ Performance adversary"
    description: "Attacks hot paths, N+1s, tail latency, and scale assumptions."
    preview: "Maps to performance-engineer. Best when the design makes scale claims."
  - label: "🏗️ Architecture adversary"
    description: "Challenges boundaries, coupling, reversibility, and YAGNI violations."
    preview: "Maps to architect. Best for expensive-to-reverse design calls."
  - label: "🎯 Product adversary"
    description: "Questions the user value, the metric, and scope creep."
    preview: "Maps to product-manager. Best for feature/spec debates."
  - label: "🐉 Contrarian (devil's advocate)"
    description: "Pure FOR/AGAINST devil's advocate — argues the unpopular side hard."
    preview: "Maps to dialectic-review. Always include for a real stress-test."

Then ask scope + rounds via a second AskUserQuestion:

question: "How hard should I push this debate?"
header: "Intensity"
multiSelect: false
options:
  - label: "🥊 Quick (3 lenses, 2 rounds)"
    description: "Fast adversarial pass. Default — good for most diffs and plans."
  - label: "🥋 Deep (5 lenses, 3 rounds)"
    description: "Full antfooding. For high-stakes, hard-to-reverse decisions only."
    preview: "Meaningfully higher token spend. Scope to one target first."

Prepend ⭐ to the best match:

• Diff touches auth/billing/data → ⭐ Security adversary
• Design makes scale/latency claims → ⭐ Performance adversary
• Expensive-to-reverse architecture call → ⭐ Architecture adversary
• Always recommend including 🐉 Contrarian

After the user picks

Dispatch the debate as a workflow. ccc-fleet.workflow.js has a dedicated mode: "debate" that actually implements the lens fan-out + cross-examination rounds (distinct from plain mode: "judge", which is single-round N-independent-attempts with hardcoded angles — no cross-examination, no custom lenses):

Workflow({
  scriptPath: "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/workflows/ccc-fleet.workflow.js",
  args: {
    mode: "debate",
    task: "Adversarially debate <target: the design doc, plan, or diff>.",
    lenses: ["security", "performance", "contrarian"],
    rounds: 2
  }
})

lenses and rounds are both honored: round 1 has each lens argue independently (blind to the others); rounds 2+ have every lens cross-examine the others' prior-round positions (concede, sharpen, or withdraw); a final judge pass rules only on objections that survived cross-examination.

If ccc-fleet.workflow.js is unavailable, fall back to ccc-fleet mode: "judge" (weaker — no lens customization or cross-examination) or the dialectic-review skill for a single FOR/AGAINST/Referee round.

Report back with a progress card — do not block while the debate runs:

🥊 Debate running — <N> lenses × <M> rounds. Agents argue and cross-examine async. Only surviving objections + a 🟢/🟡/🔴 verdict reach you — the transcript stays out of your context. ⚠️ Token spend scales with lenses × rounds. Scope kept tight.

What you get back

A synthesized ruling — conclusions only:

• 🔴 Blocking issues — objections that survived cross-examination, with path:line citations
• 🟡 Accepted tradeoffs — known costs the design deliberately takes
• 🟢/🟡/🔴 Verdict — ship / revise / block, with one-line rationale

Act on the ruling. The agents' raw back-and-forth never lands in your lead context (workflow-first §2).

Anti-patterns — DO NOT

• ❌ Run debate without a concrete target (a design doc, plan, or diff) — there's nothing to argue
• ❌ Dump the full agent transcript into lead context — relay only the synthesized verdict
• ❌ Spawn 5 lenses × 3 rounds on a trivial change — match intensity to stakes
• ❌ Debate the whole repo — scope to one design or one diff first
• ❌ Invent a Workflow API — always use Workflow({ scriptPath, args }) exactly
• ❌ Block the user while the debate runs — emit the progress card and let it run async
• ❌ Skip the contrarian lens — without a devil's advocate it's not a real stress-test

Bottom line: debate = N adversarial lenses × cross-examination × a judged verdict. Antfood your design before reality does. Scope tight, push hard, keep the ruling.

⚙️ Fable contract: plan before build · verifier ≠ worker · prove before alarm · loops need gates · leave durable state — rules/fable-method.md