Glossary

Definitions of terms used in Council documentation, commands, and configuration.

Core Concepts

Panel

A group of experts deliberating together. Panels are defined in YAML files (~/Council/panels/*.yaml or bundled templates) and specify experts, defaults, and debate mode.

Example: code-review, architecture-review

See: Panel YAML Format

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Expert

A synthetic participant in a panel with a defined role, expertise, and epistemic stance. Experts can be generic (template-based) or persona (document-trained).

Types:

• Generic expert: Template-based expert defined by role and expertise (e.g., “Senior Developer”)
• Persona expert: Document-trained expert that learns from a corpus (e.g., your CTO, trained on architecture decision records)

See: Expert YAML Format

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Slug

A short, URL-safe identifier for experts and panels. Must match ^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9-]{0,63}$ (lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens; must start with a letter or digit; maximum 64 characters).

Examples: cto, security-expert, code-review, 3d-modeler

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Debate Mode

The structure of a panel’s deliberation.

Mode	Description
freeform	(Default) Open-ended discussion. Experts respond in turns, building on each other’s points.
structured	Four-phase debate: Hypothesis Formation → Deliberation → Convergence → Synthesis.

Configure: defaults.mode in panel YAML or --mode CLI flag.

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Round

One complete cycle where each expert contributes once. Panels run for multiple rounds (maxRounds) or until convergence.

Default: 4 rounds

Range: 1–20 rounds

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Epistemic Stance

The lens through which an expert interprets evidence and forms beliefs. Defines their values, priorities, and cognitive biases.

Example: “You have seen too many breach post-mortems where the root cause was ‘we trusted X’.”

See: Expert YAML Format

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Weighted Evidence

Types of evidence an expert prioritizes when reasoning. Ordered by importance.

Example (Security Auditor):

• Trust boundaries (where untrusted input enters)
• Auth/AuthN/AuthZ correctness
• Injection paths (SQL, command, template)

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Synthesis

The final consolidated answer produced by council conclude or the structured debate’s Synthesis phase. Combines insights from all experts into a coherent recommendation.

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Session

A persistent debate or chat session stored in the database. Sessions can be resumed, exported, or archived.

Commands: council sessions list, council resume <session-id>

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Memory

Expert-specific knowledge indexed from documents. Used by persona experts to ground responses in prior context (e.g., past decisions, team guidelines).

Commands: council memory list, council memory show <key>

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Data Home

The directory where user-authored experts, panels, and documents live. Default: ~/Council/

Override: COUNCIL_DATA_HOME or config.paths.dataHome

See: Data Locations

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Runtime Home

The directory for ephemeral state (database, logs, cache). Default: ~/.council/

Override: COUNCIL_HOME environment variable

See: Data Locations

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Document Management

Document Corpus

A collection of files indexed for a persona expert. Council extracts text from supported formats and builds a searchable index.

Location: ~/Council/docs/<expert-slug>/

See: Document Formats

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AI Extraction

Experimental feature that uses AI to build structured text descriptions of unsupported file formats. Never sends files externally — runs locally via the configured engine.

Modes: off (default), ask, auto

See: Document Formats · Configuration

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Supported Formats

File extensions Council can natively parse or convert to text. Includes .md, .txt, .pdf, .docx, .pptx, .xlsx, .csv, and more.

See: Document Formats

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Output & Rendering

Renderer

The output formatter used during live debates (council convene, council resume, council ask).

Options:

• auto — (Default) Ink (TUI) if TTY, plain otherwise
• ink — Interactive terminal UI
• plain — Line-by-line output
• json — NDJSON stream

See: Output Formats

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Export Format

The file format for exporting panel transcripts (council export).

Options:

• markdown — (Default) Human-readable transcript
• json — NDJSON stream
• adr — Architecture Decision Record

See: Output Formats

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NDJSON

Newline-Delimited JSON. One JSON object per line. Used for machine-readable exports and programmatic processing.

Example:

{"role":"system","content":"..."}
{"role":"user","content":"..."}
{"role":"assistant","content":"...","expert":"cto"}

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Engine & Provider

Engine

The AI backend Council uses to power expert responses.

Options:

• copilot — (Default) GitHub Copilot (requires authentication)
• mock — Deterministic mock engine for testing

Configure: defaults.engine or --engine flag

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Model

Provider-agnostic model identifier (e.g., claude-sonnet-4.5). Council translates this to the provider-native name.

Default: claude-sonnet-4.5

Configure: defaults.model, panel YAML defaults.model, or expert YAML model

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Commands

Convene

Start a structured debate with a panel of experts.

council convene <panel>

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Chat

Interactive chat session with a panel. Supports @mention and @convene directives.

council chat <panel>

See: In-Chat Directives

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Conclude

Synthesize a panel’s transcript into a final recommendation.

council conclude <panel>

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Resume

Resume a previous session by ID.

council resume <session-id>

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Export

Export a panel transcript to markdown, JSON, or ADR format.

council export <panel> --format <format>

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Ask

One-shot question to an expert (no panel).

council ask <expert> <question>

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Related

• Commands Reference — Full command syntax
• Configuration — Settings reference