Have agents argue opposing positions from the same evidence, then synthesize, so the strongest case for each option is heard before deciding. Use when a decision is genuinely contested and one agent's answer would hide the trade-off.
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---
name: agent-debate-protocol
description: Have agents argue opposing positions from the same evidence, then synthesize, so the strongest case for each option is heard before deciding. Use when a decision is genuinely contested and one agent's answer would hide the trade-off.
---
# Agent debate protocol
Asking one agent for a recommendation gets you a confident answer with
its counterarguments buried. Debate surfaces them by construction:
advocates argue their assigned side properly, and the synthesis has to
account for both rather than for one.
## Method
1. **Fix the options before the debate.** Two or three concrete
positions. Advocates argue the given options; letting them invent new
ones mid-debate turns argument into brainstorming.
2. **Assign sides, and require genuine advocacy.** Each agent argues its
position as strongly as the evidence permits, including where the
evidence is thin. Balanced advocates produce mush.
3. **Give every advocate the same evidence.** Differences should come
from interpretation, not from information asymmetry, or the debate is
decided by who was told more.
4. **Run at least one exchange.** Opening statements alone are parallel
monologues; a rebuttal round is where weak arguments are exposed.
5. **Have a separate synthesizer.** Not one of the advocates, since an
advocate cannot fairly weigh its own case (see
agent-pricing-committee for a worked example).
6. **Require the synthesis to state the losing case's strongest
point.** If it cannot, the debate was not real.
7. **End with a recommendation and its conditions.** What would have to
be true for the other option to win, which is what makes the decision
reviewable later (see agent-decision-log).
## Boundaries
Debate clarifies trade-offs; it does not produce truth, and a confident
advocate can win an argument the evidence does not support. It costs
several times a single query, so reserve it for consequential and
genuinely contested decisions. Humans decide; the pack is an input (see
agent-human-checkpoint).
