Use council-review

Convene a council of distinct senior-engineer personas (Architect, Security, Operator/SRE, Pragmatist, User-Advocate, plus optional bench seats) to deliberate a…

Convene a council of distinct senior-engineer personas (Architect, Security, Operator/SRE, Pragmatist, User-Advocate, plus optional bench seats) to deliberate a decision, design, or code change — each takes an independent stance, the genuine disagreements are surfaced as named cruxes, and a Chair issues a reconciled verdict that records dissents and states what would change the decision. The "Claude Council."

Reach for it when a choice has real tradeoffs and one reviewer's voice isn't enough: architecture decisions, risky changes before merge, RFC/design scrutiny, "should we adopt X?", rewrite-vs-refactor, or a pre-mortem.

Install it

npx skilldrop-cli install council-review                 # Claude Code, your user folder
npx skilldrop-cli install council-review --project       # Claude Code, this repo
npx skilldrop-cli install council-review --ide cursor    # or kiro, codex, antigravity, copilot

It is part of the Core pack: --pack core installs it with its neighbours.

Ask for it

Say it the way you would to a colleague. Requests like these route to it:

"Convene the council on this architecture decision"
"I want multiple senior perspectives to deliberate this change"
"Get an architect, security, and SRE view on this before we commit"
"Run a pre-mortem style multi-perspective review of this RFC"
"This is risky and load-bearing — I need more than one reviewer's lens"

Requests like these belong to a different skill, so it shouldn't answer them:

"Review this code for edge cases the first pass missed"
"Critique this document against its quality bar"
"Score Postgres vs DynamoDB on weighted criteria"

If another skill answers instead, ask for this one by name: "use council-review".

Check what you get

A good result:

Real disagreement, or honest consensus — never theater. Manufactured conflict between personas is the cardinal sin. If they agree, say "unanimous" and give the one reason; spend the words on the cruxes that are real.
Every seat point is concrete and attached to evidence. file:line for code, the named assumption for a decision. ❌ "Security has concerns." ✅ "Security 🔴: exec(\tar ${path}\) at jobs/export.ts:28 — path is user-controlled; command injection."
Stances are explicit and scannable. The reader sees the split (🟢/🟡/🔴/⚪) at a glance, before reading a word of argument.
Seats stay in their lane. The Pragmatist doesn't relitigate the threat model; Security doesn't lecture on naming. Overlap means the roster is wrong — cut or merge.
The Chair decides, doesn't average. ❌ "There are good points on both sides." ✅ "PROCEED WITH CONDITIONS — we accept the added operational load (Operator's dissent noted) because the security gain is load-bearing; revisit if on-call pages exceed X."
Dissent is preserved. The minority seat's strongest point survives into the verdict. A council that erases dissent is just one opinion wearing five hats.
Falsifiable verdict. "What would change our mind" is mandatory — it turns a verdict into a decision the team can revisit when facts change.

See a worked example

redis cache decision

Use something else when

A trivial or one-line change — convening five voices is noise. Use devils-advocate or just review it.
A single-lens task. Pure code review → devils-advocate. Pure doc review → doc-critique.
When you need one expert answer fast, not a deliberation. The council is for when the disagreement is the point.
Greenfield spike/throwaway code — deliberation wastes effort on what won't survive.
As a rubber stamp to manufacture consensus for a decision already made. If the call is final, don't stage a fake trial.

Where a loop runs it

Stage decide of the build loop, where gate G2.1 decides
Stage ratify of the design loop, where gate G1 decides
Stage go of the release loop, where gate G3.1 decides

SKILL.md, the instructions the agent reads
Its page on the site
Related: devils-advocate, doc-critique

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