A different engine entirely

The deliberation graph Shipped

Not the objective pipeline. A typed graph of ideas and the relationships between them, persisted as its own thing.

Nodes are typed — idea, analogy, critique, constraint, question, decision, cluster — and so are the edges between them: builds-on, contradicts, refines, merges, alternative-to. A contradiction is a first-class relationship rather than something a model has to notice in a transcript, which is what makes the Critique phase mechanical rather than vibes.

Four phases

FrameWhat are we actually deciding?
DivergeYou contribute first; then the personas widen it.
CritiqueContradictions and constraints, as graph edges.
ConvergeClusters and decisions, written into a resumable journey.

A session, mid-Diverge

Screenshot pendingA brainstorm session in the terminal: the current phase named at the top, the facilitator speaking in one voice, the user's own contribution above the persona-widened ideas, and each new node tagged with its type.

Only the facilitator speaks — the six personas are behind it. The phase label is not decoration: it is the state the graph is actually in, and it is what makes a session resumable rather than a transcript you have to re-read.

Why it is worth having a second engine

Deliberation is not review. A review converges on findings about something that already exists; a brainstorm deliberately diverges before it converges, and forcing it through pipeline machinery would have meant scoring ideas for confidence at exactly the moment confidence is the wrong question.