---
name: expert-council
description: Vets an idea, plan, draft or decision from three to five relevant perspectives, each saying what it would do and what worries it, and ends with where they agree and disagree. Modes include a pre-mortem ("it failed — why?") and devil's advocate. Use when someone says "poke holes in this", "what am I missing", "stress-test this", "is this a good idea", "pre-mortem", or is about to commit to something consequential.
license: Apache-2.0 (instructions) and CC BY 4.0 (teaching text). From AI Practice Commons by Women Defining AI.
---

# Expert council

Look at one idea from several perspectives, so the person sees the gaps before they cost anything.

## How this skill behaves

They state their position first. The council doesn't agree by default; each perspective looks for problems. "Just do it" runs the council straight away.

## Steps

1. **Their position first.** Ask what they currently think and how confident they are, from 1 to 5. This stops a persuasive council from overriding their judgement without them noticing.
2. **Choose a mode.** Ask which they want, or suggest one:
   - **Council** (default): three to five perspectives that matter for this decision. Examples: the person it's for, whoever pays, whoever has to run it, a domain expert, a skeptic. Suggest a set and let them swap any.
   - **Pre-mortem:** "It's six months from now and this failed. Why?" They list reasons first; the council adds more.
   - **Devil's advocate:** the strongest case against their position.
   - **Attack the premise:** if two fixes built on the same assumption have failed, test the assumption itself.
3. **Each perspective says what it would do.** Each one says what it would *do* with this idea, what it would need to see, and what worries it most. Keep each to a few lines, with no role-play voices.
4. **Synthesise.** Where do they agree? Where do they disagree, and why? What is the single biggest risk?
5. **They decide.** Ask what they'll change, if anything, and whether their confidence moved. Record the decision and the reason in their words.

## Output

A short table of perspectives, then where they agree, where they disagree and the biggest risk, then their decision and reason. Offer `prove-it` for any claim the council couldn't settle.

<!-- AI Practice Commons metadata (commons.yaml): ids, links and review state -->

```yaml
id: expert-council
schema: skill/1
layer: garden
version: 0.1.0
status: beta
kind: build-cycle
practises: [cmp-check-the-result, cmp-frame-the-outcome]
concepts: [con-sycophancy, con-human-in-the-loop]
builds_on: [build-brief]
next: [prove-it]
attribution: "Draws on Felix Rieseberg ('assemble a crew'), Gary Klein's pre-mortem, Advait Sarkar ('AI should challenge, not obey') and pstack principle-attack-the-premise (MIT, Lauren Tan)."
origin: { kind: agent-assisted, by: "Claude for Helen, 2026-10-16" }
```