war-room

Overview

The War Room convenes multiple AI experts to analyze problems from diverse perspectives, challenge assumptions through adversarial review, and synthesize optimal approaches under the guidance of a Supreme Commander.

Philosophy

"The trick is that there is no trick. The power of intelligence stems from our vast diversity, not from any single, perfect principle."

- Marvin Minsky, Society of Mind

Reversibility-Based Routing

Before deliberation, assess the Reversibility Score (RS) to determine appropriate resource allocation:

RS = (Reversal Cost + Time Lock-In + Blast Radius + Information Loss + Reputation Impact) / 25

| RS Range | Type | Mode | Resources | |----------|------|------|-----------| | 0.04 - 0.40 | Type 2 | Express | 1 expert, < 2 min | | 0.41 - 0.60 | Type 1B | Lightweight | 3 experts, 5-10 min | | 0.61 - 0.80 | Type 1A | Full Council | 7 experts, 15-30 min | | 0.81 - 1.00 | Type 1A+ | Delphi | 7 experts, 30-60 min |

Quick Heuristics:

• Can be A/B tested? → Type 2
• Requires data migration? → Type 1
• Public commitment required? → Type 1A+

See modules/reversibility-assessment.md for full scoring guide.

When To Use

• Architectural decisions with major trade-offs
• Multi-stakeholder problems requiring diverse perspectives
• High-stakes choices with significant consequences (RS > 0.60)
• Novel problems without clear precedent
• When brainstorming produces multiple strong competing approaches

When NOT To Use

• Simple questions with obvious answers
• Routine implementation tasks
• Well-documented patterns with clear solutions
• Time-critical decisions requiring immediate action
• Type 2 decisions (RS ≤ 0.40) — use Express mode or skip War Room entirely

Expert Panel

Default (Lightweight Mode)

| Role | Model | Purpose | |------|-------|---------| | Supreme Commander | Claude Opus | Final synthesis, escalation decisions | | Chief Strategist | Claude Sonnet | Approach generation, trade-off analysis | | Red Team | Gemini Flash | Adversarial challenge, failure modes |

Full Council (Escalated)

| Role | Model | Purpose | |------|-------|---------| | Supreme Commander | Claude Opus | Final synthesis | | Chief Strategist | Claude Sonnet | Approach generation | | Intelligence Officer | Gemini 2.5 Pro | Large context analysis (1M+) | | Field Tactician | GLM-4.7 | Implementation feasibility | | Scout | Qwen Turbo | Quick data gathering | | Red Team Commander | Gemini Flash | Adversarial challenge | | Logistics Officer | Qwen Max | Resource estimation |

Deliberation Protocol

Two-Round Default

Round 1: Generation
  - Phase 1: Intelligence Gathering (Scout, Intel Officer)
  - Phase 2: Situation Assessment (Chief Strategist)
  - Phase 3: COA Development (Multiple experts, parallel)
  - Commander Escalation Check

Round 2: Pressure Testing
  - Phase 4: Red Team Review (all COAs)
  - Phase 5: Voting + Narrowing (top 2-3)
  - Phase 6: Premortem Analysis (selected COA)
  - Phase 7: Supreme Commander Synthesis
  - Phase 8: Discussion Publishing

Delphi Extension (High-Stakes)

For high-stakes decisions, extend to iterative Delphi convergence:

• Multiple rounds until expert consensus
• Convergence threshold: 0.85

Integration

With Brainstorm

War Room is AUTOMATICALLY INVOKED from Skill(attune:project-brainstorming) after Phase 3 (Approach Generation).

The brainstorm skill passes all context to War Room:

• Problem statement and constraints
• Generated approaches with pros/cons
• Comparison matrix
• Reversibility assessment (automatically calculated)

Bypass conditions (only if ALL true):

• RS ≤ 0.40 (Type 2 decision - clearly reversible)
• Single obvious approach with no meaningful trade-offs
• Low complexity with well-documented pattern
• User explicitly declines after seeing RS assessment

# Automatic invocation from brainstorm (do not skip)
/attune:war-room --from-brainstorm

# Direct invocation (standalone)
/attune:war-room "Should we use microservices or monolith for this system?"

With Memory Palace

Sessions persist to the Strategeion (War Palace):

~/.claude/memory-palace/strategeion/
  - war-table/      # Active sessions
  - campaign-archive/  # Historical decisions
  - doctrine/       # Learned patterns
  - armory/         # Expert configurations

With Conjure

Experts are invoked via conjure delegation:

• conjure:gemini-delegation for Gemini models
• conjure:qwen-delegation for Qwen models
• Direct CLI for GLM-4.7 (ccgd or claude-glm --dangerously-skip-permissions)

Usage

Basic Invocation

/attune:war-room "What architecture should we use for the new payment system?"

With Context

/attune:war-room "Best approach for API versioning" --files src/api/**/*.py

Reversibility Assessment Only

Quick assessment without full deliberation:

/attune:war-room "Database migration to MongoDB" --assess-only

Output:

Reversibility Assessment
========================
Decision: Database migration to MongoDB

Dimensions:
  Reversal Cost:      5/5 (months of rework)
  Time Lock-In:       4/5 (migration path hardens)
  Blast Radius:       5/5 (all services affected)
  Information Loss:   4/5 (query patterns, ACID)
  Reputation Impact:  2/5 (internal unless downtime)

Reversibility Score: 0.80
Decision Type: Type 1A (One-Way Door)
Recommended Mode: Full Council

Proceed with full deliberation? [Y/n]

Force Express Mode (Type 2)

Skip to rapid decision for clearly reversible choices:

/attune:war-room "Which logging library to use" --express

Force Full Council

Override RS assessment for critical decisions:

/attune:war-room "Migration strategy" --full-council

Delphi Mode

For highest-stakes irreversible decisions:

/attune:war-room "Long-term platform decision" --delphi

Resume Session

/attune:war-room --resume war-room-20260120-153022

Output

Decision Document

The War Room produces a Supreme Commander Decision document:

## SUPREME COMMANDER DECISION: {session_id}

### Reversibility Assessment
| Dimension | Score | Rationale |
|-----------|-------|-----------|
| Reversal Cost | X/5 | ... |
| Time Lock-In | X/5 | ... |
| Blast Radius | X/5 | ... |
| Information Loss | X/5 | ... |
| Reputation Impact | X/5 | ... |

**RS: 0.XX | Type: [1A+/1A/1B/2] | Mode: [delphi/full_council/lightweight/express]**

### Decision
**Selected Approach**: [Name]

### Rationale
[Why this approach was selected]

### Implementation Orders
1. [ ] Immediate actions
2. [ ] Short-term actions

### Watch Points
[From Premortem - what to monitor]

### Reversal Plan (for Type 1 decisions)
[If this decision proves wrong, here's the exit strategy]

### Dissenting Views
[For the record]

Session Artifacts

Saved to Strategeion:

• Intelligence reports
• Situation assessment
• All COAs (with full attribution after unsealing)
• Red Team challenges
• Premortem analysis
• Final decision

Anonymization

Expert contributions are anonymized during deliberation using Merkle-DAG:

• Responses labeled as "Response A, B, C..." during review
• Attribution revealed only after decision is made
• Hash verification ensures integrity

See modules/merkle-dag.md for details.

Escalation

Automatic (Reversibility-Based)

Deliberation mode is automatically selected based on Reversibility Score:

| RS Score | Automatic Mode | |----------|----------------| | ≤ 0.40 | Express (bypass full War Room) | | 0.41 - 0.60 | Lightweight panel | | 0.61 - 0.80 | Full Council | | > 0.80 | Full Council and Delphi |

Manual Override

The Supreme Commander may override automatic classification when:

• High complexity detected (multiple architectural trade-offs)
• Significant disagreement between initial experts
• Novel problem domain requiring specialized analysis
• Precedent-setting decision (future decision