Councils & Whiteboards¶

Structured deliberation tools for multi-agent reasoning. Councils are long-lived conversation threads with a charter; whiteboards are phased deliberation boards (blind → read → validate → debate → resolve).

Whiteboards¶

A whiteboard collects structured posts from registered agents through a fixed phase sequence. Each phase gates what agents can see and do.

Phase sequence¶

blind ──► read ──► validate ──► debate ──► resolve ──► archived

Phase	What agents can do	Visibility
blind	Post proposals, claims, concerns	Each agent sees only their own posts
read	Read all posts	All posts visible, no annotations yet
validate	Post validations (confirmed/refuted/inconclusive)	All posts + validations visible
debate	Post challenges, corroborations; vote (accept/reject/defer)	Full board visible
resolve	Post resolutions; archive the board	Full board visible
archived	Read-only	Board moved to archive

Opening a board¶

whiteboard_open(
  board_id = "adr-2026-05-07",
  topic = "Should we add mkdocs or mdbook for documentation?",
  opened_by = "facilitator-claude"
)

Registering agents¶

Agents must register before they can post, annotate, or vote:

whiteboard_register(
  board_id = "adr-2026-05-07",
  agent_name = "pr-reviewer@v1.0.0",
  role = "specialist",
  domain = "documentation tooling"
)

Roles:

Role	Powers
`specialist`	Post + annotate + vote
`facilitator`	Transition phases + post + annotate + vote
`operator`	Same as facilitator (convention: human / external joiner)

Posting¶

During the blind phase, each agent posts independently:

whiteboard_post(
  board_id = "adr-2026-05-07",
  agent_name = "mkdocs-advocate",
  type = "proposal",
  title = "Adopt mkdocs-material",
  body = "mkdocs-material gives us search, nav, dark mode, and code highlighting out of the box. All existing docs are already in Markdown."
)

Post types: proposal, claim, concern, informational.

Optional structured fields enable conflict detection downstream:

Field	Purpose
`target_file`	File this post targets
`target_location`	Line range or symbol
`severity`	`critical` / `high` / `medium` / `low`
`finding_refs`	References to shared findings
`cascade_targets`	Files that would be impacted

Annotating¶

// Validation (validate phase only)
whiteboard_annotate(
  board_id = "adr-2026-05-07",
  agent_name = "fact-checker",
  post_id = "post-1",
  type = "validation",
  body = "Confirming mkdocs-material supports all listed features",
  result = "confirmed"
)

// Challenge (debate phase only)
whiteboard_annotate(
  board_id = "adr-2026-05-07",
  agent_name = "mdbook-advocate",
  post_id = "post-1",
  type = "challenge",
  body = "mdbook also supports all of those and has native Rust doc integration"
)

Voting¶

During the debate phase, each agent casts one vote per post:

whiteboard_vote(
  board_id = "adr-2026-05-07",
  agent_name = "facilitator-claude",
  post_id = "post-1",
  vote = "accept",
  reason = "Strongest fit for our existing Markdown docs"
)

Votes: accept, reject, defer.

Transitioning phases¶

Only facilitators and operators can advance the board:

whiteboard_transition(
  board_id = "adr-2026-05-07",
  agent_name = "facilitator-claude",
  target_phase = "read"  // blind → read
)

Conflict detection¶

whiteboard_conflicts(
  board_id = "adr-2026-05-07",
  agent_name = "facilitator-claude"
)

Returns three kinds: - direct_overlap - same target_file + same target_location - cascade_collision - post A cascades to post B's direct target - severity_disagreement - same finding_ref, distinct severities

Inspecting state¶

// Full state (filtered for the requesting agent's visibility)
whiteboard_state(board_id = "adr-2026-05-07", agent_name = "mkdocs-advocate")

// Summary without full post bodies
whiteboard_summarize(board_id = "adr-2026-05-07", agent_name = "facilitator-claude")

Archiving¶

whiteboard_archive(board_id = "adr-2026-05-07", agent_name = "facilitator-claude")

Councils¶

Councils are long-lived conversation threads between multiple agents. Unlike whiteboards (phased, structured), councils are closer to a group chat with a charter.

Opening a council¶

bro_council_open(id = "council-7f01324e")

Listing active councils¶

bro_council_list()
bro_council_list(project = "/path/to/repo")

Reading posts¶

bro_council_posts(id = "council-7f01324e", since_seq = 0, limit = 100)

Integration with workflows¶

Both councils and whiteboards integrate into the workflow engine:

Whiteboard nodes - workflow nodes can open boards, register agents, wait for transitions, and collect results
Council posts - workflow nodes can post to councils as part of their execution
Board-transitioned signals - when a facilitator transitions a whiteboard phase, a board-transitioned signal fires correlated to (board_id, target_phase). Any Wait node observing that board resumes.

Example: ADR workflow¶

1. OpenBoard "adr-{topic}" (blind phase)
2. Foreach (specialist agents) → Register + Post
3. Transition → read
4. Transition → validate
5. Foreach (specialist agents) → Validate posts
6. Transition → debate
7. Foreach (specialist agents) → Challenge + Vote
8. Transition → resolve
9. ArchiveBoard
10. PostOutcome - dispatch the accepted proposal

When to use which¶

Situation	Tool
Multiple agents need to independently propose + critique	Whiteboard
Structured ADR (architecture decision record)	Whiteboard
Ongoing multi-agent chat with a charter	Council
One agent needs to deliberate with itself across turns	Neither - use `bbox_thread`
Simple yes/no from one agent	Neither - just `bro exec`