Deliberation

Overview

Decision-making through deliberation — seeking unity through discernment rather than consensus through debate.

This approach draws on Quaker business practice, adapted for AI-assisted decision-making.

Core insight: Some decisions deserve more than quick answers. These skills provide structured approaches for genuine discernment.

The Three Skills

| Skill | Purpose | When to Use | |-------|---------|-------------| | deliberation:discernment | Internal voices seeking clarity | Weighty questions, ethical decisions, trade-offs, multiple valid approaches | | deliberation:clearness | Multi-agent committee with parallel deep work | Code reviews, architecture decisions, research needing distributed depth | | deliberation:gathered | User participates alongside agent voices | User has stake/perspective, wants to discern together rather than receive advice |

Routing Logic

digraph deliberation_routing {
    "Question received" [shape=box];
    "User has stake/perspective?" [shape=diamond];
    "Needs parallel deep analysis?" [shape=diamond];
    "Weighty question?" [shape=diamond];
    "deliberation:gathered" [shape=box, style=filled];
    "deliberation:clearness" [shape=box, style=filled];
    "deliberation:discernment" [shape=box, style=filled];
    "Answer directly" [shape=box];

    "Question received" -> "User has stake/perspective?";
    "User has stake/perspective?" -> "deliberation:gathered" [label="yes"];
    "User has stake/perspective?" -> "Needs parallel deep analysis?" [label="no"];
    "Needs parallel deep analysis?" -> "deliberation:clearness" [label="yes"];
    "Needs parallel deep analysis?" -> "Weighty question?" [label="no"];
    "Weighty question?" -> "deliberation:discernment" [label="yes"];
    "Weighty question?" -> "Answer directly" [label="no"];
}

Signals for Each Skill

Use deliberation:gathered when:

• "I've been thinking about this for weeks"
• "I'm torn between..."
• "I think X, but..."
• "I don't just want your opinion"
• User expresses their own position in the question

Use deliberation:clearness when:

• Complex code review touching multiple concerns
• Architecture decision with many dimensions
• Research requiring deep exploration of multiple options
• Task where you'd write a very long response covering many angles shallowly

Use deliberation:discernment when:

• Ethical weight or potential for harm
• Multiple valid approaches exist
• Significant trade-offs
• You'd naturally want to say "it depends"

Shared Principles

All three skills share these principles:

| Principle | Meaning | |-----------|---------| | Sense of the meeting | Clerk discerns where unity lies - not counting votes | | Speaking once | Each perspective speaks once, then listens | | Silence | Pausing between voices lets insights emerge | | Standing aside | "I disagree but won't block" - honest without preventing | | Blocking | Rare - only for violations of core principles | | Way opens | Recognizing when clarity emerges vs. forcing decision |

Shared Resources

• skills/shared/principles.md - Core principles
• skills/shared/vocabulary.md - Shared terminology
• skills/shared/clerk-patterns.md - Synthesis patterns for clerk role