polyclaude

PolyClaude

Multi-perspective council analysis for Claude Code.

PolyClaude spawns parallel cognitive perspectives to analyze your questions, plans, and ideas from multiple angles — then synthesizes the results through structured dialectical analysis. Instead of one viewpoint, you get a council of distinct thinkers who agree, disagree, and challenge each other.

The output isn't a list of opinions. It's a decision document: consensus points, structured tensions, blind spots nobody caught, a confidence map, and a clear verdict.

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Installation

# Add the marketplace (one-time)
claude plugin marketplace add Riley-Coyote/polyclaude

# Install the plugin
claude plugin install polyclaude@polyclaude

Restart Claude Code after installing. The /polyclaude command will be available in all sessions.

Troubleshooting: If the marketplace add fails with an SSH error, your machine is trying to use SSH for GitHub but the keys aren't set up. Run this to force HTTPS:

git config --global url."https://github.com/".insteadOf "[email protected]:"

Then retry the marketplace add command.

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Usage

Basic

/polyclaude Should we rewrite the auth system or patch it incrementally?

Council Size

Flag	Perspectives	Use Case
--quick	2	Fast sanity check
(default)	4	Balanced analysis
--full	6	Comprehensive deep dive
--council N	2-6	Exact count (power users)

/polyclaude --quick Is this API design reasonable?
/polyclaude --full What's our mobile strategy for next year?

Quality

Flag	What it does
(default)	Sonnet agents — fast, cost-effective
--deep	Opus agents — maximum analytical depth

/polyclaude --deep What architecture should we use for real-time sync?
/polyclaude --full --deep Should we pivot to enterprise?

Perspective Control

Override which perspectives participate:

/polyclaude --include temporal,innovator Should we refactor the API?
/polyclaude --exclude pragmatist What if we open-sourced everything?

Perspective names: architect, skeptic, pragmatist, innovator, advocate, temporal

Estimated Costs

Mode	Perspectives	Sonnet (default)	Opus (--deep)
--quick	2	~$0.15	~$0.75
(default)	4	~$0.30	~$1.50
--full	6	~$0.45	~$2.25

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How It Works

/polyclaude "Should we use a monorepo or polyrepo?"
                         |
                    CLASSIFY QUESTION
                    Type: Architecture
                         |
         ┌───────────────┼───────────────┐───────────────┐
         v               v               v               v
    ARCHITECT        SKEPTIC        PRAGMATIST      USER ADVOCATE
    (parallel)       (parallel)     (parallel)      (always present)
         |               |               |               |
         └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘
                         |
                  DIALECTICAL SYNTHESIS
                  1. Map consensus
                  2. Identify tensions
                  3. Resolve or frame trade-offs
                  4. Detect blind spots
                  5. Build confidence map
                  6. Synthesize verdict
                         |
                   COUNCIL REPORT

1. Classify — PolyClaude reads your question and determines the type (architecture, strategy, UX, risk, innovation, planning)
2. Select — Picks the most relevant perspectives based on council size. The User Advocate is always included; others are chosen adaptively by question type
3. Analyze — Spawns N agents in parallel, each analyzing from their distinct cognitive lens
4. Synthesize — Performs dialectical synthesis: not just summarizing what each said, but finding agreements, tensions, and blind spots
5. Report — Outputs a structured Council Report you can act on immediately

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The Council

Six cognitive perspectives are available. The User Advocate is always included by default.

The User Advocate (always included)

"How does this feel to encounter for the first time?"

Thinks from the perspective of whoever will actually use, encounter, or be affected by this decision. Cares about first impressions, learning curves, emotional responses, and accessibility. The voice of the person who wasn't in the room.

The Architect

"What are the load-bearing assumptions?"

Systems thinker. Sees structure, connections, dependencies, and feedback loops. Maps components and relationships, assesses scalability, finds structural weaknesses. Thinks in diagrams.

The Skeptic

"What are we not seeing?"