/council

command: council
disable-model-invocation: true
description: "Multi-LLM council for advice, decision support, implementation plans, and gated implementation"
skill: skill-council

Council

Use `/octo:council <task>` when the user wants a structured council of multiple LLM personas to advise, critique, synthesize, and optionally hand off an approved implementation plan.

MANDATORY COMPLIANCE

Run the real Octopus runner by default. Your council execution action must resolve the plugin root and call:

"$CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/scripts/orchestrate.sh" council $ARGUMENTS

If `CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT` is unset, use `"${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-${CODEX_PLUGIN_ROOT:-${HOME}/.claude-octopus/plugin}}/scripts/orchestrate.sh"`.

PROHIBITED: Do not simulate a council, role-play multiple personas inside one model, or answer directly unless the user explicitly passes `--simulate` or `--single-model`. If simulation is requested, label it as `single-model simulation` in the response and preserve the runner's `summary.json` path.

Run through `skill-council` for preflight, research-first handling, artifact review, and gate handling, but do not let the skill replace the shell runner. Do not skip provider/cost preflight, quorum checks, run artifacts, or implementation gates.

When clarification or options are needed before execution, use `AskUserQuestion` with 2-4 mutually exclusive choices per question, then run the real council runner with the selected flags. Do not end the response with a loose question or a list of questions.

Interactive Clarification Before Execution

If the task, goal, depth, implementation permission, research mode, or corpus handling is ambiguous, ask before running the council runner:

AskUserQuestion({
  questions: [
    {
      question: "How should the council handle this request?",
      header: "Council Goal",
      multiSelect: false,
      options: [
        {label: "Advice (Recommended)", description: "Return a structured recommendation without implementation"},
        {label: "Decision", description: "Optimize for choosing between specific options"},
        {label: "Implementation plan", description: "Produce a plan but do not edit files"},
        {label: "Review", description: "Critique existing code, docs, or strategy"}
      ]
    },
    {
      question: "How deep should the council go?",
      header: "Depth",
      multiSelect: false,
      options: [
        {label: "Standard (Recommended)", description: "Balanced cost and coverage"},
        {label: "Quick", description: "Faster, lower-cost pass"},
        {label: "Deep", description: "More critique and revision, higher cost"}
      ]
    },
    {
      question: "Should the council use project research or corpus storage?",
      header: "Context",
      multiSelect: false,
      options: [
        {label: "No corpus (Recommended)", description: "Run with the provided prompt and write normal run artifacts"},
        {label: "Research first", description: "Gather local corpus context before provider fanout"},
        {label: "Append corpus", description: "Append research, synthesis, and plans to the project corpus"},
        {label: "Require corpus", description: "Stop if no durable corpus workspace is available"}
      ]
    }
  ]
})

If the user already provided clear flags and a clear task, skip clarification and execute immediately.

Examples

/octo:council --depth quick --goal advice "Should we use Redis here?"
/octo:council --goal decision --domain architecture "Should this service stay monolithic?"
/octo:council --goal implement --implement plan-only "Refactor the auth flow"
/octo:council --dry-run --members 7 --persona finance-analyst "Review this pricing strategy"

Flags

• `--goal advice|decision|plan|implement|review`
• `--domain auto|architecture|product|security|business|research|docs`
• `--style balanced|adversarial|implementation|executive|red-team`
• `--depth quick|standard|deep`
• `--members auto|3|5|7`
• `--persona <name>[,<name>]`
• `--implement never|after-approval|plan-only`
• `--worktree auto|on|off`
• `--benchmark auto|on|off`
• `--providers auto|claude,codex,agy,opencode,openrouter`
• `--max-cost <usd>`
• `--simulate`
• `--single-model`
• `--research-first`
• `--corpus-mode off|append|require`
• `--dry-run`
• `--json`
• `--output-dir <path>`