Local Council Execution

Local Council Execution

When no external providers are configured, convene a council of independent Claude subagents instead. Each member answers from one role, blind to the others; you then synthesize the spread of perspectives.

Read this first — the honest framing is not optional. Every member is Claude. They share priors and training, so agreement between them is weak signal, not validation. The value here is independent angles and blind-spot coverage, not consensus. The output you produce MUST make this explicit and MUST NOT present member agreement as if it were cross-vendor corroboration.

Step 0: Confirm this is a local-council context (guard)

A local council is the fallback for when no real providers exist — it is not a default way to "use the council". Only proceed if one of these holds:

1. The user explicitly passed --local, or
2. There are no configured providers and the user accepted the local-council offer.

If you reached this skill any other way, verify providers are actually absent before spawning anything:

bash ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/query-council.sh --list-default 2>&1 | head -1

If that lists one or more providers and the user did not ask for --local, STOP — do not spawn local members. Run the standard cross-vendor flow (council-execution) so the real providers answer, since same-model role-play is strictly weaker than the cross-vendor council the user can actually get.

Step 1: Resolve the roles

Source the libs once:

source ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/lib/prompts.sh
source ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/lib/roles.sh

If the user passed --roles, it already says both which lenses and how many members — use it directly and skip the size question:

local_council_roles "<--roles value>"

Otherwise, ask the user how many members to convene, then resolve that many:

AskUserQuestion:
  Question: "How many independent perspectives should the local council convene? More members means broader angle coverage, but a longer run and synthesis."
  Header: "Members"
  multiSelect: false
  Options:
    - "4 (Recommended) - balanced breadth"
    - "3 - quick, three sharpest lenses"
    - "5 - thorough"
    - "6 - exhaustive"

Then pass the chosen number as the count:

local_council_roles "" "<chosen number>"

local_council_roles returns a comma-separated role list (e.g. devil,simplicity,security,scalability). Each role becomes one council member; N = number of roles. It draws from a diverse ordering and clamps to the 8 available roles — a user who wants more or specific lenses can pass --roles (e.g. --roles=security,devil,simplicity,scalability,dx,compliance). If you want to be safe, validate_roles "<list>" returns non-zero on an unknown role.

Step 2: Assemble the question + context

Build the text each member will answer:

• The user's question.
• Any file context gathered via --file or auto-context (the same context the cross-vendor flow would send). Include it inline so members can reason about it even though they will also read referenced files themselves.

Step 3: Spawn the members in parallel

For each role, build the role-injected prompt and spawn one member. See agent-prompt-template.md for the exact prompt and the build_prompt_with_role call.

Launch all members in a single message (multiple Agent tool calls) with:

• subagent_type: "general-purpose"
• run_in_background: true

The member framing (independent, blind to the others, commit to the assigned lens, return format) lives in the prompt itself — see the template. Launching them together runs them concurrently and keeps each one blind to the others.

Step 4: Collect results

You are notified automatically as each background member finishes. Wait for ALL of them before synthesizing. If a member fails or times out, note it and continue with the rest.

Step 5: Display each perspective

Lead with this banner verbatim (it sets honest expectations):

Local council — these perspectives all come from Claude playing different roles, not from different AI vendors. Treat agreement as a shared starting point to pressure-test, not as independent confirmation.

Then, for each member, display its perspective under a header naming the role (use get_role_name "<role>" for the display name):

## 🗳️ {ROLE_NAME}

{member's Position / Key points / Risks & blind spots / Confidence}

Step 6: Synthesize — angles, not consensus

Because members share a model, frame the synthesis around spread and coverage, NOT agreement strength:

• Shared starting points — where members converged. Explicitly note this is a common prior to stress-test, not corroboration, and ask what they might all be missing for the same reason.
• Genuine tensions — where the roles pull in different directions, and what the user's specific situation implies about which tension matters most here.
• Blind spots — risks raised by one member that the others' approaches would walk into. Also flag anything no member covered.
• Suggested direction — your best synthesized recommendation, naming which roles support it and where the real uncertainty remains.

Step 7: Save output

mkdir -p .claude/council-cache

Write the full output (banner + all member perspectives + synthesis) to .claude/council-cache/local-council-{TIMESTAMP}.md where TIMESTAMP is the current Unix timestamp. Then tell the user:

---

Local council saved to .claude/council-cache/local-council-{TIMESTAMP}.md For cross-vendor perspectives, configure a provider key or install a CLI (/claude-council:status shows what's available).

Error Handling

• If a member fails, show the failure and continue with the others.
• If ALL members fail, report clearly and suggest retrying.
• If only one role resolved, say so — a one-member "council" is just a single role-played answer, and the user should know that.

Source: hex/claude-council — distributed by TomeVault.