# Council > Run independent multi-model research, evidence-based debate, voting, and scoped T0/T1 reviews without rubber-stamping. Use when goals encounters a genuinely contested research item, Phase B needs backlog sanity checks, an item needs independent T0 reviewers, or a milestone needs one rotating integration reviewer. - Skill: `vraj-ai/council` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add vraj-ai/council` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/vraj-ai/council/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Product & Planning - Author: vraj-ai (https://skillmd.com/u/vraj-ai) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/vraj-ai/council --- # Council Council is a protocol run either by the selectable `council` primary for standalone work or by the `goals` primary inside a goal run. What it needs from the harness: seven members, each a non-spawning subagent with read-only filesystem, skill, web, and MCP access, on models that differ from each other and from the parent. Any provider that supplies those satisfies the protocol; the slugs below are the shipped defaults, not a requirement, and the runner overrides them per member through `COUNCIL__MODEL`: - `council-grok`: `opencode-go/grok-4.5` - `council-kimi`: `openrouter/moonshotai/kimi-k3` - `council-qwen`: `openrouter/qwen/qwen3.8-max` - `council-sol`: `openai/gpt-5.6-sol` - `council-gemini`: `openrouter/google/gemini-3.6-flash` - `council-deepseek`: `openrouter/deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-0731` - `council-glm`: `opencode-go/glm-5.2` The active primary performs its own independent pass alongside all seven, making eight perspectives for contested research. Never pre-solve the question and ask members to ratify an answer. **When the configured roster is unreachable** (no binary, no auth, an exhausted workspace balance), the parent session runs members through whatever headless CLIs the machine does have, instead of skipping review. Two are enough to keep maker separate from checker. For example: ```bash grok -p "" --output-format plain # council-grok codex exec --model gpt-5.6-sol --sandbox read-only - # council-sol ``` Two things generalise from that example: a TUI-first CLI usually needs a plain or non-interactive output flag, or it never returns in a headless shell; and a long diff has to arrive on stdin rather than as an argument. Record the substitute in the review verdict so the run's provenance stays honest, and never let the fallback silently become no review at all. ## Research rounds ### Round 1: independent work In one tool message, spawn all seven members concurrently with the full task verbatim. Each independently reads real files, cites `file:line`, uses primary web sources where relevant, cites URLs, and returns a complete evidence-backed report. Goals performs its own pass before reading member reports. Do not merge yet. ### Round 2+: debate Build a neutral conflict index containing only material claims on which reports disagree. In one tool message, invoke all members again. Give each member the other reports and conflict index, but not its own report. Require point-by-point agreement, rebuttal, or concession with evidence. Rebuild the conflict index after each round. A point remains open only when members still disagree after seeing the same evidence. Stop when no new material disagreement remains or after three total rounds. ### Vote and deliverable If dissent remains at the cap, each member votes on each open point. Majority wins; goals casts only the evidence-based tie-breaking vote. Produce one clean converged report with conclusions, actions, and verdicts. Keep member framing, conflict indexes, and vote tallies in working notes, not the deliverable. ## Sanctioned Phase B exception For backlog sanity only, invoke exactly `council-grok` and `council-kimi` in one parallel message for one independent round. No debate and no vote. Require the fixed checklist: ```text COVERAGE / DUPLICATES / SCOPING / DEPENDENCIES / FEASIBILITY ``` Goals applies findings mechanically; additive evidence wins. At most one rerun. Never generalize this shortcut to contested research. ## Review roles ### T0 item review Exactly two eligible non-maker members independently review one item diff. Review items separately, never as a batch. The CLI path runs the locked verification command in each disposable review worktree. In the in-session fallback, goals runs it mechanically and supplies the evidence to reviewers, whose shell and editing permissions remain denied. Each emits: ```text VERDICT: PASS | FAIL FINDINGS: [{"severity":"P0|P1|P2|P3","file":"path:line","trigger":"...","wrong_behavior":"..."}] FOLLOWUPS: [] ``` Any evidenced P0/P1 fails closed. The reviewer never fixes the item. With the fixed GLM worker, default T0 reviewers are Grok and Kimi; GLM may research but must not judge GLM-authored code. ### T1 milestone review Use one rotating eligible member after mechanical checks pass. Scope is integration only: whether merged items compose, cross-item coverage gaps, and drift from the plan. Do not re-review item code quality. Emit `PASS`, `PASS-WITH-FOLLOWUPS`, or `FAIL`. Rotation is `council-grok -> council-kimi -> council-qwen -> council-sol`, never the same member twice in a row and never the maker model. ## Context ownership Council is read-only with respect to durable context. It never edits `AGENTS.md`, `CONTEXT/architecture.md`, `CONTEXT/progress.md`, a goal `handoff.md`, `backlog.jsonl`, or any `reviews/*.json`. Review verdicts and research reports hand back to `goals` — the sole writer of goal state — which records them. When a member's findings imply a documentation change (a locked decision shifts, a non-goal boundary moves, `architecture.md` should grow), emit it as a finding with `file:line` evidence and the documentation impact; never edit the artifacts yourself, never rewrite context broadly, and never mutate the backlog. The public vskills repository's own machine-local notes (`CONTEXT.md`, `docs/`, `CONTEXT/`, `CLAUDE.md`) are local-only under that repository's own `.gitignore` and are not council artifacts; they are not a universal rule a consumer project applies to its own tracked `CONTEXT/`, whose `architecture.md`, `progress.md`, handoff, and review verdicts council reads but never edits. ## Anti-over-engineering guard Pass this in every invocation and round: > Default to the lowest-complexity option meeting the strict requirements. > Prefer existing stack components. Avoid resume-driven architecture, > microservices, speculative extensibility, and heavy frameworks when the > standard library suffices. If a heavy option is necessary, state exactly why > simpler options fail and justify its operational tax.