Debate Kickoff (Starter Pack)

Turn a loosely stated decision ("Redis or Memcached?", "monorepo vs polyrepo") into a well-formed multi-model debate.

When to use

The user has a two-or-more-sided technical decision and wants adversarial perspectives from different model families rather than one model's opinion.

Steps

1. Extract the motion. Restate the user's question as a single debatable proposition (for example: "This project should use Redis over Memcached for session storage"). Confirm silently from context; do not interrogate the user.
2. Check seats. Run ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/helpers/check-providers.sh and note which providers are available. A debate needs at least two seatable non-Claude providers for cross-lab disagreement; if only Claude is available, say so and offer a single-model pro/con instead.
3. Assign sides. Give each available provider an explicit stance (affirmative, negative, or skeptic). Prefer cross-lab pairings (for example Codex affirmative, Antigravity negative) so disagreement is structural, not stylistic.
4. Launch. Invoke /octo:debate with the motion and the side assignments. Display the standard Octopus banner with provider indicators before dispatch.
5. Synthesize. After rounds complete, summarize where the models converged, where they genuinely disagreed, and give one recommendation with the strongest surviving argument.

Guardrails

• External seats cost money; state the expected cost band from the CLAUDE.md cost table before dispatch.
• Never fabricate a provider's position. If a seat fails, report the failure and continue with the remaining seats.