deliberation

Deliberation

Get a second opinion from GPT, Gemini, and Grok in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Kiro, Antigravity, OpenCode, or any other MCP host - plus local models (Ollama, LM Studio) and 400+ more models through OpenRouter, including Qwen, Kimi, and DeepSeek. Eight domain experts (Architect, Code Reviewer, Security Analyst, and five more) review your plans, find bugs, and debate edge cases until they agree.

Recent blog post: Meet Deliberation: 400+ models is easy, knowing which ones earn a place is hard.

📸 See a full /consensus run: round 1 disagreement to round 5 convergence

... a few moments later ...

📸 See /ask-all stage a 2-round architect debate: three models, three verdicts, then each critiques the others - disagreement matrix included

When three models argue, the real bug reveals itself. Round 1 = independent top findings. Round 2 = each model dunks on the others' picks. The disagreement matrix shows where they diverge; the conclusion shows what to actually fix first.

📸 See the local dashboard draw a /consensus run as a timeline: one lane per voice, verdicts on each, final report alongside

The dashboard (/deliberation:dashboard, opt-in with "dashboard": { "enabled": true }) is a read-only page on 127.0.0.1. Live follows runs as they happen, Runs keeps the history (with the repo and workspace each run came from, grouped by git remote org/repo, and a project filter that picks a whole repo or one workspace), Config shows the effective config, Stats shows usage and provider health, and Analyzer shows which models agree more than they add (drop candidates), which projects fail or run slow, and whether request size predicts latency and timeouts, with a suggested timeout. For a run you get:

• the header: tool, elapsed time, status, round, tokens, errors, and expert
• the phase strip: blind, peers, adjudicate, converged or revise, each with its time offset
• the timeline: rounds across the top, then one lane for the arbiter and one for each panel voice, with each call drawn as a pulse and labelled with its verdict. Drag across the plot to place two cursors and measure the time between them
• the event table: every journal event with its sequence number, time, kind, and round
• the side panel: the final report and the prompt

The CAPTURE and PII badges show what was recorded. The default capture is metadata only, and PII is redacted unless dashboard.showPII is on.

What is Deliberation?

Your coding agent can ask GPT, Gemini, Grok, local models (Ollama, LM Studio), or any OpenAI-compatible model (via OpenRouter) for help through MCP. Deliberation handles the wiring for each provider so you just write the prompt. Each expert has a distinct specialty and can advise or implement.

It is not tied to Claude Code. The same MCP server runs on any MCP host, and Codex, Cursor, Kiro, Antigravity, and OpenCode also get native plugins with the experts and delegation guidance built in (see Install). Claude Code gets the most complete version: slash commands and auto-routing rules on top of the same server.

You can use any subset of the providers. Deliberation detects which are configured and routes accordingly. OpenRouter is advisory-only and config-driven: models are declared in ~/.config/deliberation/config.json (Windows: %APPDATA%\deliberation\config.json; override with DELIBERATION_CONFIG) and hot-reload without restarting your host.

Install

Pick the path for your host:

• Claude Code - the plugin below (recommended there).
• Codex, Cursor, Kiro, Antigravity, OpenCode - the native plugins per host.
• Any other MCP host (Claude Desktop, Windsurf, Zed, VS Code, ...) - the standalone MCP server.

Claude Code plugin (recommended):

1. Add the marketplace - antonbabenko/agent-plugins

/plugin marketplace add antonbabenko/agent-plugins

2. Install the plugin

/plugin install deliberation@antonbabenko

3. Run setup

/deliberation:setup

Claude now routes complex tasks to your GPT, Gemini, Grok, local (Ollama, LM Studio), and OpenRouter experts (every provider advises; only Gemini can also implement).

Setup is a one-time step. The MCP servers are registered by the plugin manifest, so they load automatically and stay current across updates.

Updating (Claude Code)

/plugin marketplace update antonbabenko  # pull the new version from the marketplace
/deliberation:reload-mcp                 # audit processes & recycle dashboard daemon
/reload-plugins                          # reconnect the MCP servers (or restart Claude Code)

Updating on non-Claude hosts: hosts that run the standalone server via npx -y @antonbabenko/deliberation-mcp get the latest published version on each fresh resolve. npx caches resolved packages, so if a host serves an old build, clear the npx cache (rm -rf ~/.npm/_npx) or pin/refresh the version. Run bash scripts/commands/reload-mcp.sh (or trigger the reload-mcp skill / command on Codex, Antigravity, OpenCode) to audit running worker processes and recycle the background dashboard daemon safely.

Alternative: Use deliberation MCP server (standalone, works with any agents)

The orchestration server is also published on its own - npm @antonbabenko/deliberation-mcp, Official MCP Registry name io.github.antonbabenko/deliberation.

One-click install:

Manual config for any MCP clients

Add this to your host's MCP config (most hosts use the mcpServers key):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deliberation": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@antonbabenko/deliberation-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "XAI_API_KEY": "xai-...",
        "OPENROUTER_API_KEY": "sk-or-v1-..."
      }
    }
  }
}

The env block is how you set provider keys outside Claude Code. GPT and Gemini do not read keys here - they use the codex and agy CLIs (logged in separately), so drop those lines if you only use GPT/Gemini. XAI_API_KEY enables Grok; OPENROUTER_API_KEY enables OpenRouter (which also needs models declared in ~/.config/deliberation/config.json - the canonical XDG path, Windows %APPDATA%\deliberation\config.json - or point elsewhere with DELIBERATION_CONFIG). The one-click buttons above cannot carry secrets - add the env block by hand after installing.

Per-host config location and the key it expects:

Provider prerequisites are the same as the plugin (see Requirements): the Codex CLI for GPT, agy for Gemini, XAI_API_KEY for Grok, and OPENROUTER_API_KEY plus ~/.config/deliberation/config.json for OpenRouter (Windows: %APPDATA%\deliberation\config.json; override the config path with DELIBERATION_CONFIG).

Tools exposed: ask-all, consensus (the full convergence loop in one call, or a single synthesis pass with synthesizeAlways:true), consensus-step (drive the loop yourself, one action per call), ask-gpt / ask-gemini / ask-grok / ask-openrouter, panel + ask-one (discover the active provider set, then call providers individually - issue them in parallel for visible per-provider progress), analyze (read-only run analytics over the debug log + sessions: per-model latency / tokens + verdict agreement, with advisory tuning suggestions; configuredOnly and since keep the report to models you still run and a period you choose), the eight experts (architect, plan-reviewer, scope-analyst, code-reviewer, security-analyst, researcher, debugger, writing-editor), and the session tools (session-get / session-revisit / session-annotate). Every result carries ms + the effective reasoningEffort (HTTP providers add token usage). An optional debug log ("debug": { "enabled": true }) records latency / tokens / votes - never prompts or responses. An optional local dashboard ("dashboard": { "enabled": true }, then deliberation-mcp dashboard) draws every run as a live state graph in your browser; panel returns a runId that ask-one accepts, so a parallel fan-out shows as one run. These are server-side, so they work on every MCP host, not just Claude Code (see the tool guide).