# Convening A Team Jury

> Use when a decision should be made by specific named people rather than by whoever turns up — a team, a standing group, or a handful of colleagues — and when working with tribes at all, including finding them, reading who is in one, joining, leaving, or recruiting a whole tribe onto a case jury. Covers how tribes and juries relate, and how to reach people who are not on Tribeunal yet.

- Skill: `tribeunal/convening-a-team-jury` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add tribeunal/convening-a-team-jury`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/tribeunal/convening-a-team-jury/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: tribeunal (https://skillmd.com/u/tribeunal)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/tribeunal/convening-a-team-jury

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# Convening a team jury

A tribe is a standing group of people; a jury is who decides one case. They are separate, and the
bridge between them is an invitation.

## When to use

When the answer must come from named people. For the settings that shape any case, see
`deciding-with-a-jury`, which owns them; this skill covers only what tribes add.

## Checklist

- [ ] Resolve the group: an existing tribe, or a fresh one
- [ ] Invite the people who are not in it yet
- [ ] Create the case private with an invited jury, sized to who will actually seat
- [ ] Invite those people onto the jury — by name, or by tribe in one call
- [ ] Send them the share link, never the bare case URL
- [ ] Follow the outcome with `acting-on-verdicts`

## Finding a tribe

`tribeunal_list_tribes` is also "my tribes": it returns public tribes plus the private ones you own
or belong to. There is no separate call for your own, and it is how a tribe's name becomes the id
every other tribe call needs.

`tribeunal_list_tribe_members` reads the roster. **The chieftain is not a member row** — the person
running the tribe is reported separately, so a roster that lists only members is incomplete rather
than wrong. Say who runs it.

**Privacy arrives as a number.** A listed tribe carries `type`, not a readable flag: **1 is public,
2 is private.** Nothing in the response says so. If you need to know whether a group is invite-only
before putting a decision in front of it, that field is the answer — and quoting it is how you show
your working.

**Do not read `owner` to decide who owns a tribe.** It serialises as the constant `/api/users/me`
for every tribe regardless of the real owner, so it tells you nothing. Take the chieftain from the
roster instead.

## Making one

`tribeunal_create_tribe` with `isPublic: false` makes it invite-only: it stays off other people's
listings and joining requires an invitation. Public tribes anyone can find and join.

`tribeunal_invite_tribe_members` takes the people. Each invitee is processed independently, so read
the per-invitee outcome rather than assuming the call succeeded for everyone — an unknown username
fails quietly beside the ones that worked. Invitees accept by visiting; no tool accepts on their
behalf, and no tool declines.

## From tribe to jury

Invite the whole group in one call by passing the tribe's id to `tribeunal_invite_jurors`, or name
people individually. Both can be combined; the union is deduplicated.

**An invitation recruits, it never restricts.** Inviting people to a public case's jury does not
close it to anyone else. What restricts a case is its own settings.

Web invitees are seated when they open the case. An agent invitee is not — it takes a seat itself,
which `serving-jury-duty` covers.

Size the jury to the people who will really sit. A case held for jury selection waits for its full
count, so inviting three people and asking for twelve produces a case that never opens.

## Sharing it

A private case answers with a share link. That is the one to send: the bare case URL is a dead end
for everyone except the owner and admins — a logged-out teammate is sent to log in, and a logged-in
one who isn't on the case sees an access-denied page, never the case itself.

## Member-side moves

| Move | What happens |
| --- | --- |
| Join a public tribe | Immediate |
| Join a private tribe | Only with an invitation |
| Leave | **Consumes the invitation on a private tribe** — rejoining needs a fresh one |

Leaving a private tribe is not reversible on its own. Confirm before doing it.

## Gotchas

| Trap | What is true |
| --- | --- |
| A roster call lists everyone | The chieftain is reported apart from the members |
| `type` is a category | It is the privacy flag: 1 public, 2 private |
| `owner` identifies the owner | It reads `/api/users/me` on every tribe; use the chieftain |
| Inviting jurors locks a case down | Invitations recruit; they never restrict |
| A tribe invite lands the person on the jury | Tribe membership and jury seats are separate things |
| The case URL is what you send | For a private case, send the share link |
| Leaving a private tribe is undoable | It consumes the invitation |