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The Council

The Council is Headmaster’s multi-perspective deliberation mode. Instead of one agent working alone, the orchestrator (the Headmaster) dispatches the task to multiple specialists, each with a different perspective. They work in parallel, share their findings, and the orchestrator synthesizes a final answer.

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When to use the Council

Good fit

  • Problems that benefit from multiple perspectives (architecture decisions, trade-off analysis, creative work)
  • Tasks that span multiple domains (code + design, research + writing, data + presentation)
  • When you want a thorough answer rather than a fast one

Not a good fit

  • Simple questions (“what’s the syntax for X?”) — a single specialist is faster
  • Tasks with one obvious answer
  • Time-sensitive requests

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How the Council works

1

Send your message

You send a message in the chat as normal.
2

Orchestrator dispatches

The Headmaster (orchestrator) reads the task and decides which specialists to involve.
3

Parallel work

Each specialist works on the task in parallel, independently — they don’t see each other’s output until they report back.
4

Specialists report

Findings appear in the Council Chamber — a shared task board visible in the UI — as each specialist finishes.
5

Orchestrator synthesizes

The Headmaster reviews all findings, resolves disagreements by weighing arguments, and synthesizes a final answer.
6

Final answer in chat

The synthesized answer appears in your chat, with a summary of each specialist’s contribution.

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The Council Chamber

The Council Chamber is a UI panel that shows the parallel work in progress:
  • 🃏 Specialist cards — one per specialist, showing their current status (thinking, working, done).
  • 📡 Live output — each specialist’s working stream visible as it happens.
  • 📋 Shared task board — the list of subtasks and who’s working on what.
  • 🗒️ Deliberation log — the specialists’ findings as they report back.
The Council Chamber updates in real time. You can watch the deliberation, expand any specialist’s card to see their full reasoning, and interrupt the whole Council with the stop button.

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Starting a Council

Click the specialist picker and select The Council. Send your message — the orchestrator dispatches it to the specialists.

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Custom teams

You can define custom teams with specific specialist combinations:
1

Open Teams settings

Go to Settings → My Headmaster → Teams.
2

Create a team

Click Create team, pick the specialists you want, and name the team.
3

Use the team

Start a Council with this team: /council <team-name>.
Custom teams are great for recurring workflows. Example: “Architecture Review” = The Architect + The Builder + The Designer — start it with one command.

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Parallel deliberation in detail

When the Council runs, each specialist:
  1. Gets the same task description.
  2. Works independently — doesn’t see other specialists’ output until they report back.
  3. Produces their own analysis, code, or document.
  4. Reports back to the orchestrator.
The orchestrator then:
  1. Reads all specialist outputs.
  2. Identifies agreements and disagreements.
  3. Resolves conflicts by weighing the arguments.
  4. Synthesizes a final answer incorporating the best parts of each specialist’s work.
The individual specialist outputs are available in the Council Chamber panel for review.

Specialists

The 20+ built-in specialists and how to hire custom ones.

Subagent Delegation

General-purpose parallel workstream delegation — complements the Council.