feat(council): add D/P (Deterministic/Probabilistic) dual-group mode

- New 'mode' parameter: personality (default) or dp - D group: grounded, feasibility-first (Freethinker + Arbiter) - P group: exploratory, reframing-first (Freethinker + Arbiter) - Meta-Arbiter merges best ideas from both groups - Full prompt templates for ideation, assessment, bridge, and merge - Orchestration docs for single-round and multi-round D/P flows - Inspired by Flynn's dual-council architecture, adapted for OpenClaw subagents
2026-03-05 19:18:44 +00:00
parent 0acd7a2772
commit e08e3d65e9
3 changed files with 315 additions and 19 deletions
--- a/skills/council/SKILL.md
+++ b/skills/council/SKILL.md
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ final verdict with collapsed advisor perspectives.

 | Parameter | Default | Description |
 |-----------|---------|-------------|
+| mode      | personality | `personality` (3 advisors) or `dp` (D/P dual-group) |
 | flow      | parallel | `parallel`, `sequential`, or `debate` |
 | rounds    | 1       | Number of deliberation rounds (1-5). Round 1 = opening positions. Round 2+ = rebuttals where advisors see and respond to each other. |
 | tier      | light   | Model tier: `light`, `medium`, or `heavy` (see Model Selection) |
@@ -23,7 +24,51 @@ final verdict with collapsed advisor perspectives.
 - `flow=sequential, rounds=1` — each advisor sees prior outputs, then referee
 - `flow=debate, rounds=3` — parallel opening + cross-advisor rebuttals + referee synthesis

-## Advisor Roster (default)
+## Modes
+
+### Personality Mode (default)
+
+Three advisors with distinct personality lenses. Best for opinion, strategy, and brainstorming topics.
+
+### D/P Mode (Deterministic/Probabilistic)
+
+Two groups of advisors with opposing cognitive styles, inspired by Flynn's dual-council architecture. Best for complex problem-solving, technical design, and situations where you want both grounded AND creative solutions.
+
+- **Group D (Deterministic)**: Grounded, feasibility-first, risk-averse. Optimizes for "boring-but-true."
+- **Group P (Probabilistic)**: Exploratory, reframing-first, risk-tolerant. Optimizes for "non-obvious leverage."
+
+Each group has a **Freethinker** (generates ideas) and an **Arbiter** (evaluates/ranks them). The **Referee** (Meta-Arbiter) merges the best from both groups.
+
+#### D/P Subagent Roster
+
+| Role | Group | Lens | Stance |
+|------|-------|------|--------|
+| D-Freethinker | Deterministic | Proven approaches, minimal assumptions | "What's the most reliable path?" |
+| D-Arbiter | Deterministic | Feasibility scoring, risk assessment | "Does this hold up under scrutiny?" |
+| P-Freethinker | Probabilistic | Reframing, lateral thinking | "What if the question is wrong?" |
+| P-Arbiter | Probabilistic | Novelty scoring, upside potential | "Is this different enough to matter?" |
+| Meta-Arbiter | — | Cross-group synthesis | "What survives both worldviews?" |
+
+#### D/P Flow (mode=dp)
+
+Single-round (rounds=1):
+1. Spawn D-Freethinker and P-Freethinker in parallel — each generates ideas.
+2. Spawn D-Arbiter and P-Arbiter in parallel — each evaluates their group's ideas, produces shortlist.
+3. Spawn Meta-Arbiter with both group shortlists — selects primary/secondary ideas, identifies merges.
+
+Multi-round (rounds=N):
+1. **Round 1**: Parallel ideation (both freethinkers) → parallel assessment (both arbiters) → bridge packets.
+2. **Round 2..N**: Each group receives the other's bridge packet. Freethinkers revise/extend. Arbiters re-evaluate.
+3. **Final**: Meta-Arbiter receives final shortlists from both groups.
+
+Total subagent calls: 5 (single-round) or 4N+1 (multi-round).
+
+#### When to use D/P vs Personality
+
+- **Personality** (`mode=personality`): "Should we do X?" — opinion/judgment calls, strategy debates
+- **D/P** (`mode=dp`): "How should we solve X?" — problem-solving, technical design, generating concrete approaches
+
+## Personality Mode — Advisor Roster

 | Role         | Lens                            | System stance                    |
 |--------------|---------------------------------|----------------------------------|
@@ -138,3 +183,7 @@ Default roster and prompt templates live in `references/prompts.md`.
 - Consider unifying debate and parallel flows (mechanically identical, differ only in prompt tone)
 - Explore whether 2 rounds is sufficient for most topics (vs 3)
 - Test with different model tiers for advisors vs referee
+- Test D/P mode end-to-end — validate prompt templates produce useful structured output
+- Tune D/P ideas_per_round and scoring thresholds
+- Consider hybrid mode: D/P groups for ideation then personality advisors for evaluation
+- Bridge packet design: what info to exchange between groups in multi-round D/P
--- a/skills/council/references/prompts.md
+++ b/skills/council/references/prompts.md
@@ -1,6 +1,22 @@
 # Council Prompt Templates

-## Default Advisor Roster
+## Group Modes
+
+The council supports two group modes:
+
+### Personality Mode (default — current behavior)
+Three advisors with distinct personality lenses. Best for opinion/strategy/brainstorming topics.
+
+### D/P Mode (Deterministic/Probabilistic)
+Two groups of advisors with opposing cognitive styles, inspired by Flynn's dual-council architecture:
+- **Group D (Deterministic)**: Grounded, feasibility-first, risk-averse. Optimizes for "boring-but-true."
+- **Group P (Probabilistic)**: Exploratory, reframing-first, risk-tolerant. Optimizes for "non-obvious leverage."
+
+Each group has a **Freethinker** (generates ideas) and an **Arbiter** (evaluates/ranks them). The **Referee** merges the best from both groups.
+
+---
+
+## Personality Mode — Advisor Roster

 ### Pragmatist
 - **Role**: Pragmatist
@@ -22,7 +38,53 @@

 ---

-## Round 1 — Opening Position
+## D/P Mode — Group Roster
+
+### Group D — Deterministic
+
+#### D-Freethinker
+- **Role**: D-Freethinker
+- **Group**: Deterministic
+- **Lens**: Proven approaches, incremental improvements, minimal assumptions
+- **Stance**: "What's the most reliable path?"
+- **Style**: Methodical, evidence-based, conservative. Prefers known quantities over speculation.
+- **Constraints**: No moonshots, no handwavy claims, no unverified assumptions.
+
+#### D-Arbiter
+- **Role**: D-Arbiter
+- **Group**: Deterministic
+- **Lens**: Feasibility scoring, risk assessment, testability
+- **Stance**: "Does this actually hold up under scrutiny?"
+- **Style**: Analytical, structured. Scores ideas on novelty, feasibility, impact, testability. Filters aggressively.
+
+### Group P — Probabilistic
+
+#### P-Freethinker
+- **Role**: P-Freethinker
+- **Group**: Probabilistic
+- **Lens**: Reframing, non-obvious leverage, lateral thinking
+- **Stance**: "What if the question is wrong?"
+- **Style**: Creative, provocative, comfortable with uncertainty. Labels speculation explicitly.
+- **Constraints**: No incremental tweaks, no obvious best practices, no purely conventional solutions.
+
+#### P-Arbiter
+- **Role**: P-Arbiter
+- **Group**: Probabilistic
+- **Lens**: Novelty scoring, opportunity cost, upside potential
+- **Stance**: "Is this actually different enough to matter?"
+- **Style**: Evaluative but biased toward high-novelty, high-impact ideas. Tolerates higher risk.
+
+### Referee (D/P Mode)
+- **Role**: Meta-Arbiter
+- **Lens**: Cross-group synthesis, best-of-both selection
+- **Stance**: "What survives scrutiny from both worldviews?"
+- **Style**: Fair, integrative. Selects primary and secondary ideas from both groups, identifies productive merges, rejects weak ideas with clear reasoning.
+
+---
+
+## Personality Mode Prompts
+
+### Round 1 — Opening Position

 ```
 You are the {ROLE} advisor on a council deliberating a topic.
@@ -44,7 +106,7 @@ Topic:
 {TOPIC}
 ```

-## Middle Rounds — Rebuttal (rounds 2 to N-1)
+### Middle Rounds — Rebuttal (rounds 2 to N-1)

 ```
 You are the {ROLE} advisor on a council deliberating a topic.
@@ -70,7 +132,7 @@ OTHER ADVISORS (prior round):
 {OTHER_OUTPUTS}
 ```

-## Final Round — Closing Position (round N)
+### Final Round — Closing Position (round N)

 ```
 You are the {ROLE} advisor on a council deliberating a topic.
@@ -93,7 +155,7 @@ DEBATE SO FAR:
 {FULL_DEBATE_TRANSCRIPT}
 ```

-## Single-Round Advisor (when rounds=1)
+### Single-Round Advisor (when rounds=1)

 Use the Round 1 template but omit "This is ROUND 1 of a {TOTAL_ROUNDS}-round debate."

@@ -115,9 +177,7 @@ Topic:
 {TOPIC}
 ```

---
-
-## Referee — Single Round
+### Referee — Single Round (Personality Mode)

 ```
 You are the Referee of an advisory council. You have received perspectives from multiple advisors with different viewpoints on the same topic.
@@ -152,7 +212,7 @@ Advisor outputs below:
 {ADVISOR_OUTPUTS}
 ```

-## Referee — Multi-Round
+### Referee — Multi-Round (Personality Mode)

 ```
 You are the Referee of an advisory council. You have received {TOTAL_ROUNDS} rounds of debate from {N} advisors on the topic: "{TOPIC}"
@@ -187,3 +247,122 @@ Full debate transcript:

 {FULL_DEBATE_TRANSCRIPT}
 ```
+
+---
+
+## D/P Mode Prompts
+
+### D/P Freethinker — Ideation
+
+```
+You are the {GROUP}-Freethinker on a dual-council deliberation.
+
+Your group: {GROUP_NAME}
+Your lens: {LENS}
+Your style: {STYLE}
+Forbidden approaches: {FORBIDDEN_APPROACHES}
+
+Generate {IDEAS_PER_ROUND} distinct ideas/approaches for the task below.
+For each idea, provide:
+- title: short descriptive name
+- hypothesis: what you believe and why
+- mechanism: how it would work concretely
+- expected_outcome: what success looks like, measurably
+
+Be substantive and specific. No generic platitudes.
+{PEER_BRIDGE_CONTEXT}
+
+Task: {TOPIC}
+Context: {CONTEXT}
+Success definition: {SUCCESS_DEFINITION}
+Constraints: {CONSTRAINTS}
+```
+
+### D/P Arbiter — Assessment
+
+```
+You are the {GROUP}-Arbiter on a dual-council deliberation.
+
+Your group: {GROUP_NAME}
+Your lens: {LENS}
+Your style: {STYLE}
+
+Evaluate each idea below. For each, provide:
+- Scores (0-100): novelty, feasibility, impact, testability
+- Decision: shortlist, hold, or reject
+- Notes: 1-2 sentences explaining your decision
+
+Also provide:
+- assumptions: key assumptions underlying the shortlisted ideas
+- risks: top risks if we proceed with the shortlist
+- asks: what you'd want from the other group
+- convergence_signal: true if you think the group has found its best ideas
+- novelty_score: 0-100 overall novelty of this round's output
+- repetition_rate: 0-100 how much this round repeated prior rounds
+
+Ideas to evaluate:
+{IDEAS}
+{PEER_BRIDGE_CONTEXT}
+```
+
+### D/P Referee (Meta-Arbiter) — Cross-Group Merge
+
+```
+You are the Meta-Arbiter of a dual-council deliberation. You have received final shortlists from two groups with opposing cognitive styles:
+
+- Group D (Deterministic): grounded, feasibility-first, risk-averse
+- Group P (Probabilistic): exploratory, reframing-first, risk-tolerant
+
+Your job:
+1. Select the best ideas from BOTH groups — don't favor one group over the other.
+2. Identify productive merges where a D idea + P idea combine into something stronger.
+3. Reject weak ideas with clear reasoning.
+4. Surface open questions and suggest next experiments.
+
+Output format (use these exact headers):
+
+## Selected Ideas
+Primary picks (strongest overall) and secondary picks (worth pursuing).
+
+## Productive Merges
+Where ideas from D and P can be combined for something stronger than either alone.
+
+## Rejections
+Ideas that didn't make the cut and why.
+
+## Open Questions
+What we still don't know.
+
+## Next Experiments
+Concrete next steps to test the selected ideas.
+
+## Confidence
+Rate your confidence: high / medium / low, with explanation.
+
+---
+
+Group D final brief:
+{BRIEF_D}
+
+Group P final brief:
+{BRIEF_P}
+```
+
+### D/P Rebuttal Round (when using multi-round D/P)
+
+```
+You are the {GROUP}-{ROLE} on a dual-council deliberation.
+This is round {N}. You've received a bridge packet from the other group summarizing their top ideas, assumptions, risks, and asks.
+
+Review the bridge packet and respond:
+- Which of their ideas could strengthen your group's shortlist?
+- Which of their assumptions do you challenge?
+- What would you steal from them?
+- Update your own output accordingly.
+
+Bridge from {PEER_GROUP}:
+{BRIDGE_PACKET}
+
+Your group's prior output:
+{OWN_PRIOR_BRIEF}
+```
--- a/skills/council/scripts/council.sh
+++ b/skills/council/scripts/council.sh
@@ -8,11 +8,24 @@
 #
 # ─── PARAMETERS ────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 #
+# mode:   personality (default) | dp
 # flow:   parallel (default) | sequential | debate
 # rounds: 1 (default) | 2-5
 # tier:   light (default) | medium | heavy
 #
-# ─── PARALLEL FLOW ─────────────────────────────────────────────────
+# ─── MODE SELECTION ────────────────────────────────────────────────
+#
+# personality: 3 advisors (Pragmatist, Visionary, Skeptic) + 1 Referee
+#   - Best for opinion/judgment calls, strategy, brainstorming
+#   - Diversity comes from personality lenses
+#
+# dp: 2 groups (D + P), each with Freethinker + Arbiter, + 1 Meta-Arbiter
+#   - Best for problem-solving, technical design, generating approaches
+#   - Diversity comes from structural cognitive style
+#   - Group D = Deterministic (grounded, feasibility-first)
+#   - Group P = Probabilistic (exploratory, reframing-first)
+#
+# ─── PERSONALITY MODE: PARALLEL FLOW ──────────────────────────────
 #
 # Single round (rounds=1):
 #   1. Spawn 3 advisors in parallel (sessions_spawn, mode=run)
@@ -32,7 +45,7 @@
 #   7. Spawn referee with FULL debate transcript (all rounds)
 #   8. Deliver to user
 #
-# ─── SEQUENTIAL FLOW ──────────────────────────────────────────────
+# ─── PERSONALITY MODE: SEQUENTIAL FLOW ───────────────────────────
 #
 # Single round (rounds=1):
 #   1. Spawn advisor 1 → collect output
@@ -45,7 +58,7 @@
 #   2. ROUND 2..N: Each advisor sees ALL prior round outputs
 #   3. Spawn referee with full thread
 #
-# ─── DEBATE FLOW ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
+# ─── PERSONALITY MODE: DEBATE FLOW ───────────────────────────────
 #
 # Always multi-round (min 2, default 3):
 #   1. ROUND 1: Parallel opening takes
@@ -53,21 +66,76 @@
 #   3. ROUND N: Final positions (parallel, full transcript)
 #   4. Spawn referee with full debate + evolution notes
 #
+# ─── D/P MODE: PARALLEL FLOW ─────────────────────────────────────
+#
+# Single round (rounds=1):
+#   1. Spawn D-Freethinker and P-Freethinker in parallel (ideation)
+#   2. Collect both sets of ideas
+#   3. Spawn D-Arbiter and P-Arbiter in parallel (assessment)
+#      - D-Arbiter gets D ideas, P-Arbiter gets P ideas
+#   4. Collect both shortlists
+#   5. Spawn Meta-Arbiter with both group shortlists (merge)
+#   6. Deliver to user
+#
+# Multi-round (rounds=N):
+#   1. ROUND 1: Parallel ideation → parallel assessment → bridge packets
+#      - Bridge = summary of shortlist, assumptions, risks, asks
+#   2. ROUND 2..N: Each group receives other's bridge packet
+#      - Freethinkers revise/extend ideas incorporating bridge info
+#      - Arbiters re-evaluate with cross-group context
+#   3. FINAL: Meta-Arbiter receives final shortlists from both groups
+#   4. Deliver to user
+#
+# Subagent calls per run:
+#   - Single round: 5 (2 freethinkers + 2 arbiters + 1 meta)
+#   - Multi-round:  4N + 1 (2 freethinkers + 2 arbiters per round + 1 meta)
+#
+# ─── D/P MODE: SEQUENTIAL FLOW ───────────────────────────────────
+#
+# Single round (rounds=1):
+#   1. Spawn D-Freethinker → collect ideas
+#   2. Spawn D-Arbiter with D ideas → collect shortlist
+#   3. Spawn P-Freethinker → collect ideas
+#   4. Spawn P-Arbiter with P ideas → collect shortlist
+#   5. Spawn Meta-Arbiter with both shortlists → deliver
+#
+# Note: Less useful for D/P mode since groups are independent.
+# Parallel is the natural D/P flow. Sequential is supported but
+# doesn't add much because groups don't see each other until the bridge.
+#
 # ─── MODEL TIER SELECTION ─────────────────────────────────────────
 #
 # light:  advisors=default, referee=default
 # medium: advisors=default, referee=stronger (e.g. opus-tier)
 # heavy:  advisors=stronger, referee=stronger
 #
+# For D/P mode:
+# light:  freethinkers=default, arbiters=default, meta=default
+# medium: freethinkers=default, arbiters=default, meta=stronger
+# heavy:  freethinkers=stronger, arbiters=stronger, meta=stronger
+#
 # ─── SUBAGENT LABELING ────────────────────────────────────────────
 #
-# Labels follow pattern: council-r{round}-{role}
-# Examples: council-r1-pragmatist, council-r2-skeptic, council-referee
-# Single-round: council-pragmatist, council-referee (no round prefix)
+# Personality mode:
+#   Labels: council-r{round}-{role}
+#   Examples: council-r1-pragmatist, council-r2-skeptic, council-referee
+#   Single-round: council-pragmatist, council-referee (no round prefix)
+#
+# D/P mode:
+#   Labels: council-r{round}-{group}-{role}
+#   Examples: council-r1-d-freethinker, council-r1-p-arbiter, council-meta
+#   Single-round: council-d-freethinker, council-p-arbiter, council-meta
 #
 # ─── WORD COUNT GUIDANCE ──────────────────────────────────────────
 #
-# Round 1 (opening):  200-400 words
-# Middle rounds:      200-300 words
-# Final round:        150-250 words
+# Personality mode:
+#   Round 1 (opening):  200-400 words
+#   Middle rounds:      200-300 words
+#   Final round:        150-250 words
+#
+# D/P mode:
+#   Freethinker:  3-5 ideas, 100-200 words each
+#   Arbiter:      Scored shortlist, 50-100 words per idea evaluation
+#   Meta-Arbiter: 300-500 words total synthesis
+#
 # This keeps multi-round debates from exploding in token cost.