brainstorm-council

Brainstorm Council

Adversarial multi-role analysis. NOT a chat about the topic — a structured process with a fixed call budget.

Hard limits

• Max 15 model calls per run. Track the count. Announce the number used at the end.
• Max 2 tie-break loops on any single issue. After that the issue is reported as unresolved, with both positions stated. An honest deadlock beats a manufactured consensus.
• If the budget would be exceeded, drop the lowest-priority issues and say which ones were dropped. Never silently truncate.

Output contract

Everything goes to chat. Write no files.

Post the debate as it happens, so the user can follow or skim it. Then a hard separator, then the final report:

════════════════════════════════════════
RAPORT
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Above the line: the process — roles, questions, positions, cross-examination, votes. Below the line: the deliverable, written for someone who did not read any of it. No dialogue, no persona names, no "role 2 argued that". Just conclusions, reasoning, and actions.

The report must stand alone. If a sentence only makes sense to someone who read the debate above, rewrite it.

Keep the debate readable in a chat client: short paragraphs, clear headers per phase, no walls of text.

Roles

Four roles with conflicting interests, not just different job titles. This is the part that decides whether the skill works or produces four polite agreements.

Each role gets:

• A profession relevant to the topic
• A priority it will not trade away
• A cost it is willing to impose on others to protect that priority
• A characteristic blind spot

Construct roles so that at least two pairs are in structural conflict — one optimizing for speed/cost, one for safety/correctness, one for the end user, one for whoever maintains the thing afterwards.

Example, "build a website": web developer (wants clean implementation, will impose delay), marketer (wants launch now, will impose technical debt), security specialist (wants controls, will impose friction), legal/compliance (wants documentation, will impose paperwork).

Example, "build a house": site manager (schedule), electrician (code compliance), plumber (access and serviceability), interior designer (how it looks and lives).

Anti-convergence rules

These are mandatory. Without them one model playing four parts produces one voice in four costumes.

• In the opening round no role may agree with another role. If a role has nothing to object to, it must name what the other role has not considered.
• Every role must at some point argue for something that is inconvenient for the user. A council that only validates is worthless.
• Roles argue from their interest, not from neutrality. The security role is allowed to be paranoid. The marketer is allowed to be impatient.
• Disagreement is professional, never personal. Once outvoted, a role commits and stops relitigating — but may record a formal reservation, which goes into the report.

Phases

Phase 0 — Role proposal (1 call)

Analyze the topic. Propose 4 roles: name, priority, what it will sacrifice, blind spot. Stop and wait for the user to approve or swap roles. Do not proceed unapproved.

Phase 1 — Interview (1 call)

Each proposed role contributes questions from its own angle. Merge, deduplicate, drop anything answerable by reasoning alone.

Ask in batches of 5–6, not all at once. Every question offers "don't know / skip" — an unknown is itself a finding and goes into the report as a gap.

Cover what the user has not thought of, not just what they asked. For a website: hosting, existing design, their own skill level, security, certificates, legal registration, terms of service, GDPR, backups, who maintains it in a year.

Phase 2 — Issue assignment (0 calls)

Split answers into discrete issues. Assign each to the best-fitting role. Balance the load. Rank by impact — if the budget gets tight, the bottom of the list is what gets dropped.

Phase 3 — Positions (4 calls, one per role)

Each role writes its assigned issues from its own perspective: recommendation, reasoning, what it costs, what breaks if ignored.

Phase 4 — Cross-examination (4 calls, one per defending role)

One role presents; the other three attack in the same call. Thesis-defense format: challenge assumptions, demand evidence, point out what was ignored. Defending role responds or concedes.

Any dispute reaching an impasse goes to a vote of the two uninvolved roles:

• 3:1 or 4:0 — resolved, loser commits, may file a reservation
• 2:2 — rerun that issue once with the strongest counterargument fed back in. Still tied after 2 attempts → unresolved, both positions reported

Phase 5 — Report (1 call)

A fifth role, uninvolved in the debate, writes the final report below the separator. It has access to everything but writes for the user, not about the process.

Structure: executive summary, what to do and in what order, decisions with reasoning, unresolved items with both positions, gaps from unanswered questions, risks, what was deliberately left out.

Budget: 11 calls of 15. The remaining 4 cover tie-breaks and re-runs.

Failure modes

• Everyone agrees → roles were built without conflicting interests. Rebuild Phase 0.
• Debate is theater — objections raised and instantly conceded → force each role to hold at least one position through a full round.
• Report reads like a chat log → Phase 5 role summarized the debate instead of synthesizing conclusions. Rewrite from the resolutions, not the dialogue.
• Budget blown before Phase 5 → the report is the only thing the user asked for. Reserve its call first, cut issues instead.