council-verdicts

Council Verdict Interpretation (Starter Pack)

Read a completed council run's artifacts and explain what the verdicts actually mean before anyone acts on them.

When to use

A /octo:council run has finished and the user asks "so what did the council decide?" or pastes a summary.json path.

Steps

1. Locate artifacts. Find the newest council output under ~/.claude-octopus/results/ (look for summary.json and per-seat verdict files). If none exist within the session window, say so; never invent a verdict.
2. Check roster validity. From summary.json, confirm each seat's real provider and model (the agy seat records its resolved model, not default). Flag same-lineage panels: two seats backed by the same model family weaken the verdict's independence.
3. Tally the verdicts. Report the raw count (APPROVE / REJECT / ABSTAIN / REVISE) and whether quorum was met. A malformed or missing verdict from a seat counts as ABSTAIN, and the SubagentStop gate (hooks/subagent-stop-gate.sh) may have flagged it; check the gate's usage log for quality scores.
4. Surface dissent. Quote the strongest dissenting argument verbatim. A 2-1 split with a substantive dissent is a weaker mandate than 3-0; say which one this is.
5. Recommend the action. Map the tally to a next step: unanimous APPROVE means proceed; majority with dissent means proceed with the dissent's concern as a follow-up item; majority REJECT means do not proceed and list what would change the outcome.

Guardrails

• Verdicts gate decisions; they do not execute them. Never auto-apply a council outcome to code.
• If seats disagree on facts (not judgment), the run is inconclusive; recommend a re-run with the factual dispute resolved first.