Council of High Intelligence

A Claude Code skill that convenes historical thinkers for multi-perspective deliberation on complex problems.

LLMs make you think they are smart, but when things get complex their reasoning can fall short. This council uses structured disagreement between diverse intellectual traditions to surface blind spots, challenge assumptions, and produce better decisions.

The 18 Council Members

Agent	Figure	Domain	Model	Polarity
council-aristotle	Aristotle	Categorization & structure	opus	Classifies everything
council-socrates	Socrates	Assumption destruction	opus	Questions everything
council-sun-tzu	Sun Tzu	Adversarial strategy	sonnet	Reads terrain & competition
council-ada	Ada Lovelace	Formal systems & abstraction	sonnet	What can/can't be mechanized
council-aurelius	Marcus Aurelius	Resilience & moral clarity	opus	Control vs acceptance
council-machiavelli	Machiavelli	Power dynamics & realpolitik	sonnet	How actors actually behave
council-lao-tzu	Lao Tzu	Non-action & emergence	opus	When less is more
council-feynman	Feynman	First-principles debugging	sonnet	Refuses unexplained complexity
council-torvalds	Linus Torvalds	Pragmatic engineering	sonnet	Ship it or shut up
council-musashi	Miyamoto Musashi	Strategic timing	sonnet	The decisive strike
council-watts	Alan Watts	Perspective & reframing	opus	Dissolves false problems
council-karpathy	Andrej Karpathy	Neural network intuition & empirical ML	sonnet	How models actually learn and fail
council-sutskever	Ilya Sutskever	Scaling frontier & AI safety	opus	When capability becomes risk
council-kahneman	Daniel Kahneman	Cognitive bias & decision science	opus	Your own thinking is the first error
council-meadows	Donella Meadows	Systems thinking & feedback loops	sonnet	Redesign the system, not the symptom
council-munger	Charlie Munger	Multi-model reasoning & economics	sonnet	Invert — what guarantees failure?
council-taleb	Nassim Taleb	Antifragility & tail risk	opus	Design for the tail, not the average
council-rams	Dieter Rams	User-centered design	sonnet	Less, but better — the user decides

Polarity Pairs

The members are chosen as deliberate counterweights:

• Socrates vs Feynman — Both question, but Socrates destroys top-down; Feynman rebuilds bottom-up
• Aristotle vs Lao Tzu — Aristotle classifies everything; Lao Tzu says structure IS the problem
• Sun Tzu vs Aurelius — Sun Tzu wins external games; Aurelius governs the internal one
• Ada vs Machiavelli — Ada abstracts toward formal purity; Machiavelli anchors in messy human incentives
• Torvalds vs Watts — Torvalds ships concrete solutions; Watts questions whether the problem exists
• Musashi vs Torvalds — Musashi waits for the perfect moment; Torvalds says ship it now
• Karpathy vs Sutskever — Build it, observe it, iterate; vs pause, research, ensure safety first
• Karpathy vs Ada — Empirical ML intuition vs formal systems theory
• Kahneman vs Feynman — Your cognition is the first error vs trust first-principles reasoning
• Meadows vs Torvalds — Redesign the feedback loop vs fix the symptom and ship
• Munger vs Aristotle — Multi-model lattice vs single taxonomic system
• Taleb vs Karpathy — Hidden catastrophic tails vs smooth empirical scaling curves
• Rams vs Ada — What the user needs vs what computation can do

Three Deliberation Modes

Full Mode (default)

3-round structured deliberation: independent analysis → cross-examination → final positions.

/council Should we open-source our agent framework?
/council --triad strategy What's our competitive moat?
/council --full What is the right pricing model?

Quick Mode (--quick)

2-round rapid analysis for simpler decisions. No cross-examination.

/council --quick Should we add caching here?
/council --quick --triad shipping Should we release today?

Duo Mode (--duo)

2-member dialectic using polarity pairs. Great for exploring tensions.

/council --duo Should we use microservices or monolith?
/council --duo --members torvalds,ada Is this abstraction worth it?

Pre-defined Triads

Domain	Triad	Rationale
architecture	Aristotle + Ada + Feynman	Classify + formalize + simplicity-test
strategy	Sun Tzu + Machiavelli + Aurelius	Terrain + incentives + moral grounding
ethics	Aurelius + Socrates + Lao Tzu	Duty + questioning + natural order
debugging	Feynman + Socrates + Ada	Bottom-up + assumption testing + formal verification
innovation	Ada + Lao Tzu + Aristotle	Abstraction + emergence + classification
conflict	Socrates + Machiavelli + Aurelius	Expose + predict + ground
complexity	Lao Tzu + Aristotle + Ada	Emergence + categories + formalism
risk	Sun Tzu + Aurelius + Feynman	Threats + resilience + empirical verification
shipping	Torvalds + Musashi + Feynman	Pragmatism + timing + first-principles
product	Torvalds + Machiavelli + Watts	Ship it + incentives + reframing
founder	Musashi + Sun Tzu + Torvalds	Timing + terrain + engineering reality
ai	Karpathy + Sutskever + Ada	Empirical ML + scaling frontier + formal limits
ai-product	Karpathy + Torvalds + Machiavelli	ML capability + shipping pragmatism + incentives
ai-safety	Sutskever + Aurelius + Socrates	Safety frontier + moral clarity + assumption destruction
decision	Kahneman + Munger + Aurelius	Bias detection + inversion + moral clarity
systems	Meadows + Lao Tzu + Aristotle	Feedback loops + emergence + categories
uncertainty	Taleb + Sun Tzu + Sutskever	Tail risk + terrain + scaling frontier
design	Rams + Torvalds + Watts	User clarity + maintainability + reframing
economics	Munger + Machiavelli + Sun Tzu	Models + incentives + competition
bias	Kahneman + Socrates + Watts	Cognitive bias + assumption destruction + frame audit

Council Profiles

classic (default)

All 11 members with domain triads above. Best for broad deliberation.

exploration-orthogonal

12-member panel for discovery and "unknown unknowns" reduction:

• Socrates, Feynman, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Ada, Lao Tzu, Aurelius, Torvalds, Karpathy, Sutskever, Kahneman, Meadows
• Profile triads: unknowns, market-entry, system-design, reframing, ai-frontier, blind-spots

execution-lean

5-member panel for fast decision-to-action:

• Torvalds, Feynman, Sun Tzu, Aurelius, Ada
• Profile triads: ship-now, launch-strategy, stability

Multi-provider / Multi-model Exploration

Use --models to spread members across AI providers and reduce model monoculture.

/council --profile exploration-orthogonal --models configs/provider-model-slots.example.yaml Should we pivot?

Starter template: configs/provider-model-slots.example.yaml

Deliberation Protocol

Full Mode

1. Round 1: Independent Analysis (blind-first) — all members analyze in parallel (400 words max)
2. Round 2: Cross-Examination — members challenge each other (300 words, must engage 2+ others)
3. Round 3: Synthesis — final 100-word position statements

Quick Mode

1. Round 1: Rapid Analysis — all members analyze in parallel (200 words max)
2. Round 2: Final Positions — 75-word crystallization

Duo Mode

1. Round 1: Opening Positions — both state positions (300 words)
2. Round 2: Direct Response — engage opponent's claims (200 words)
3. Round 3: Final Statements — 50-word positions

Anti-recursion enforcement prevents Socrates from infinite questioning. Anti-convergence enforcement requires dissent quota + counterfactual pass when agreement forms too early. Tie-breaking uses 2/3 majority with domain expert weighting.

Installation

./install.sh

Optional flags:

./install.sh --claude-dir /path/to/.claude   # Non-default config directory
./install.sh --dry-run                        # Preview without writing
./install.sh --copy-configs                   # Also install model routing templates

Or manually:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/agents ~/.claude/skills/council
cp agents/council-*.md ~/.claude/agents/
cp SKILL.md ~/.claude/skills/council/SKILL.md

Then restart Claude Code. The /council command will be available immediately.

Quick Simulation Checklist

Run this before release or after profile edits:

./scripts/council-simulation-checklist.sh

Demo Session Pack

Use the ready-to-run examples to test all modes:

• demos/session-pack.md

Requirements

• Claude Code CLI
• Agent subagent support (enabled by default)

Contributing

Contributions welcome. Read the contribution guidelines first.

❤️ Support the Project

If you find this project useful, consider supporting my open-source work.

Solana donations

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License

To the extent possible under law, the authors have waived all copyright and
related or neighboring rights to this work.

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