ADR-0181 - Evidence-settled decisions and bounded panels

Context

Agents should not send technical homework to the user when inspection, project precedent, official documentation, or empirical evidence can settle it. One agent can still miss a viable alternative; blind agreement among several agents can preserve the same error.

Distinct perspectives improve review coverage [PBR], while raw peer rationales can induce conformity and waste tokens [CONSENSUSCOST]. Consensus is not verification [CONSENSUS], and multi-agent fan-out can lose to one agent under an equal token budget [SINGLEBEATSMAS]. The useful pattern is bounded independence, not a meeting with no exit.

Decision

1. Settle technical ambiguity with evidence. A standalone universal method resolves technical and procedural choices through direct inspection, current authoritative sources, safe exercise, project conventions, and empirical data. It returns the decision and decisive evidence in chat.
2. Do not create a decision artifact by default. Routine technical resolution remains working conduct. Product intent, public behavior, material security or cost tradeoffs, waivers, irreversible actions, and acceptance remain human-owned.
3. Persist deliberation only when deliberation is the job. sus-panel authors a panel artifact when a consequential choice needs several independent perspectives and a durable recommendation.
4. Use an adaptive panel. A user-specified participant count wins. Otherwise the orchestrator chooses the smallest panel that covers every material perspective. No numeric floor or cap is canonical.
5. Buy diversity cheaply. Use the cheapest capable models by default. Give fresh participants one fixed question and evidence packet. Hide peer analyses until every initial response lands.
6. Synthesize; do not transcribe. Persist the question, constraints, options, recommendation, material dissent, and unknowns. Omit identities, votes, transcripts, and repeated rationale.
7. Verify claims outside the vote. Agreement never proves a fact. The orchestrator verifies load-bearing claims against direct evidence and may run one targeted follow-up when evidence can resolve a decisive conflict.
8. Keep neighboring methods distinct. Research collects and qualifies evidence. A panel compares viable alternatives. The panel recommends; it does not seize human intent.
9. Recognize the new artifact explicitly. Checks contract 0.25.0 adds panel as a recognized unchecked type. No check ID or MCP surface changes.

Narrowed decisions

• ADR-0151 and ADR-0157: the catalog adds settle and sus-panel; closed artifact authorship adds panel.
• ADR-0169: the new skills carry only control that changes execution.
• ADR-0170: technical ambiguity is resolved by evidence; durable multi-perspective deliberation is explicit and proportional.

Consequences

• Solvable technical questions stop reaching the user.
• Important alternatives receive independent scrutiny without a fixed headcount or open-ended debate.
• Cheap fan-out stays optional and evidence-bounded.
• Durable panel output is short enough to use.

Status

Accepted (2026-08-15). Narrows ADR-0151, ADR-0157, ADR-0169, and ADR-0170.