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.Good fit for the Council
Use the Council when:- A problem benefits from multiple perspectives (architecture decisions, trade-off analysis, creative work).
- You want a thorough answer rather than a fast one.
- The task spans multiple domains (code + design, research + writing, data + presentation).
- Simple questions (“what’s the syntax for X?”) — a single specialist is faster.
- Tasks with one obvious answer.
- Time-sensitive requests.
How the Council works
- You send a message in the chat.
- The Headmaster (orchestrator) reads the task and decides which specialists to involve.
- Each specialist works on the task in parallel, producing their own analysis or output.
- The specialists share their findings in the Council Chamber — a shared task board visible in the UI.
- The Headmaster reviews all findings, resolves disagreements, and synthesizes a final answer.
- The final answer appears in your chat, with a summary of each specialist’s contribution.
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 is 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.
Starting a Council
Two approaches:- From the chat: Click the specialist picker and select The Council. Then send your message. The orchestrator dispatches it to the specialists.
- With a slash command: Type
/councilin the composer. This routes to/team/default, which starts the Council with the default specialist set. You can specify a different team with/council <team-name>.
Custom teams
You can define custom teams with specific specialist combinations:- Open Settings → My Headmaster → Teams.
- Click Create team.
- Pick the specialists you want on this team.
- Name the team.
- Start a Council with this team:
/council <team-name>.
Parallel deliberation
When the Council runs, multiple specialists work at the same time. Each specialist:- Gets the same task description.
- Works independently — they don’t see each other’s output until they report back.
- Produces their own analysis, code, or document.
- Reports back to the orchestrator.
- Reads all specialist outputs.
- Identifies agreements and disagreements.
- Resolves conflicts by weighing the arguments.
- Synthesizes a final answer that incorporates the best parts of each specialist’s work.