Council Verification Skill

Use LLM Council's multi-model deliberation to verify work with structured, machine-actionable verdicts.

When to Use

• Verify code changes before committing
• Validate implementation against requirements
• Check documents for accuracy and completeness
• Get multi-model consensus on quality

Workflow

1. Snapshot: pin the git commit SHA (reproducibility)
2. Verify: call mcp:llm-council/verify (isolated context)
3. Act on the verdict (structured JSON below)
4. Audit: transcript via mcp:llm-council/audit

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
snapshot_id	string	required	Git commit SHA for reproducibility
rubric_focus	string	null	Focus area: "Security", "Performance", "Accessibility"
confidence_threshold	float	0.7	Minimum confidence for PASS verdict
tier	string	"balanced"	Confidence tier: "quick", "balanced", "high", "reasoning"

Tier Selection Guide

Tier	Use When	Timeout	Max Input
quick	Fast sanity checks, small diffs	~30s	15K chars
balanced	Default. Routine verification	~90s	30K chars
high	Security-critical reviews only	~180s	50K chars
reasoning	Complex architectural decisions	~600s	50K chars

Important: high/reasoning use slow frontier models. For large diffs (>20K chars), prefer balanced to avoid timeouts.

Evidence (ADR-042)

Pass pre-computed analysis from upstream tools (linters, slop detectors) via evidence: List[EvidenceItem]. Council emits evidence_summary and evidence_warnings in the response. See references/evidence.md for fields, limits, example.

Output Schema

{
  "verdict": "pass|fail|unclear",
  "confidence": 0.85,
  "confidence_calibrated": 0.62,
  "unclear_reason": null,
  "rubric_scores": { "accuracy": 8.5, "completeness": 7.0, "...": "..." },
  "blocking_issues": [...],
  "rationale": "Chairman synthesis...",
  "transcript_location": ".council/logs/...",
  "partial": false,
  "timeout_fired": false,
  "completed_stages": ["stage1", "stage2", "stage3"],
  "timing": { "total_elapsed_ms": 142000, "budget_utilization": 0.53, "...": "..." },
  "input_metrics": { "content_chars": 32000, "tier": "high", "...": "..." },
  "evidence_summary": [...],
  "evidence_warnings": [...]
}

If timeout_fired: true, the tier deadline was exceeded. Check completed_stages for progress. timing.budget_utilization shows time used vs deadline (1.0 on timeout). See ADR-040 for full timeout semantics.

On UNCLEAR, route on unclear_reason: infra_failure → check gateway + RETRY; low_confidence → accept-and-audit if no blocking issues; timeout → re-tier. Details: references/unclear-routing.md.

Rules

1. One call at a time. Never fire multiple verify calls concurrently or in rapid succession. Wait for each to complete before deciding next steps.
2. One call per commit. Never retry the same snapshot_id. If it fails, fix the code first.
3. Act on verdicts, don't retry them:
   • PASS (exit_code 0): Proceed.
   • FAIL (exit_code 1): Read blocking_issues. Fix the code, commit, then re-verify the new snapshot.
   • UNCLEAR (exit_code 2): Accept and move on. Do not retry.
4. Do not reduce scope and retry. Sending the same code with fewer files is still a retry.

Related Skills

council-review (code review), council-gate (CI/CD gate)