cli-forge-quorum — REC-Quorum Orchestration (BFT-grade)

Generates a multi-agent orchestration with Byzantine fault tolerance, adaptive quorum sizing per task criticality, and view-change timeouts to eliminate single-leader bottlenecks.

The pattern comes from applying distributed-systems research (PBFT, HotStuff, Mir-BFT, Mercury, BFTBrain) to LLM agent dispatch. Empirically validated by arxiv 2511.15755 — multi-agent orchestration raises actionable-recommendation rate from 1.7% to 100% with zero variance across 348 trials.

When to use this skill (triage)

Key test : if stalling the leader would cost > 1h of wasted sprint time, you need REC-Quorum. If the leader can stall and be manually unblocked in < 15 min, Brigade is enough.

Architecture — three phases, each gated

Phase 0 — Reflect    → plan signé + tickets commis (Chef + 2 Sous-Chefs plan)
Phase 1 — Execute    → leaderless, tickets pré-signés, contre-chef-inter auto-approve
Phase 2 — Control    → f+1 validateurs indépendants signent le résultat

Each phase emits a signed certificate (hash canonique + signatures). Without the certificate, no transition to the next phase. A failing phase triggers view-change (backup takes over) or escalation (human in the loop).

Phase details

Read references/rec-phases.md for the complete specification of each phase, including timeouts, hash-canonical voting, and view-change protocol.

Leaderless Execute — eliminating the Chef bottleneck

Read references/leaderless-execute.md. Core idea: at Phase 0, the Chef signs a ticket per commis stating "commis-X is authorized to Edit files matching scope S in normal zones". During Execute, the contre-chef-inter validates tickets against edits — no round-trip to the Chef. The Chef sleeps until Phase 2 or escalation.

Adaptive quorum sizing

Read references/quorum-sizing.md. A task classifier maps incoming requests to N:

Cost model: N=7 → 7× LLM cost. Document this in every sprint plan so operators don't casually pick critical.

Visualization — Petri Nets / CWN, not PERT

Read references/petri-cwn-templates.md. PERT cannot model loops, tokens, or conditional gates — all of which REC-Quorum has. Colored Workflow Nets (van der Aalst) natively model:

• tokens = certificates with signatures (token color = signer set)
• AND-split / AND-join for fan-out quorum
• guarded transitions for k-of-n thresholds
• soundness analysis for free (no deadlock, no dead tasks)

For live dashboards: bpmn-js with token simulation plugin, or Renew/WoPeD for formal analysis.

BFT primitives (pointers, not implementations)

Read references/bft-primitives.md. Do not re-implement consensus. Pick from:

• HotStuff-lite for leader-based BFT with linear complexity and pipelining
• Mir-BFT / Arma for multi-leader horizontal scaling
• Mercury for low-latency dual-mode BFT (optimistic vs Byzantine path)
• BFTBrain if workload varies enough to justify RL-based protocol swapping

For threshold signatures: BLS (short sigs, aggregatable) or Schnorr MuSig2 (more battle-tested).

Upgrade path from Brigade

Read references/upgrade-from-brigade.md. A working cli-forge-chef brigade can migrate to REC-Quorum incrementally:

1. Keep the Chef for Phase 0 (planning) only
2. Add tickets pré-signés as part of the Chef's output
3. Split Sous-Chefs into Plan-validators (Phase 0) vs Control-validators (Phase 2)
4. Add the contre-chef-inter (already generated by cli-forge-chef at tier ≥ M)
5. Add per-phase timeouts with view-change
6. Migrate shared-state.md to shared-state.jsonl (append-only signed log)

Each step is independently deployable and testable.

Generation workflow

Phase 1 — Assess the project

# Does this project really need REC-Quorum?
# Run the triage decision tree

1. Does the workload have > 5 parallel agents? → continue
2. Is decision quality SLA required? → continue
3. Has a Brigade attempt stalled before? → continue
4. Is a threshold-signatures library available in the project language? → continue
5. Can the operator budget 2× LLM cost for a critical sprint? → continue

If any answer is "no" that matters to the use case, stop and suggest cli-forge-chef instead.

Phase 2 — Gather inputs

• Project root + branch model (same as cli-forge-chef)
• Criticality classification for each expected task type
• Available primitives (threshold sig lib? consensus lib?)
• Target observability (Petri animation? BPMN dashboard? raw logs only?)
• Compliance needs (audit trail? SOC2? HIPAA?)

Phase 3 — Generate the artifacts

Produce at minimum:

1. {project}/.claude/rec-quorum/orchestrator-{session}.md — main orchestrator prompt (replaces Chef role)
2. {project}/.claude/rec-quorum/plan-validator-{role}-{session}.md — Phase 0 validator prompts (scope, secu)
3. {project}/.claude/rec-quorum/control-validator-{role}-{session}.md — Phase 2 validator prompts (tests, security, contracts, policy, perf)
4. {project}/.claude/rec-quorum/apply-pane-{session}.md — apply pane prompt (Phase 2 mutations coordinator, see references/apply-quorum-rec-q.md)
5. {project}/.claude/rec-quorum/ticket-template.json — canonical ticket schema
6. {project}/.claude/rec-quorum/shared-state.jsonl — bootstrap the append-only log
7. {project}/.claude/rec-quorum/certificates/.gitkeep — directory for Phase-transition signed certificates (Q8)
8. {project}/.claude/rec-quorum/plans/.gitkeep — directory for apply plan artefacts (apply-quorum)
9. ~/.config/tmuxinator/{session}.yml — windows for orchestrator + plan-validators + control-validators + apply pane + commis + ccheck + contre-chef-inter
10. {project}/.claude/rec-quorum/petri-net.cpn or .bpmn — workflow model for the sprint
11. {project}/.claude/settings.local.json — root permissions (see Reused artefacts below)
12. {project}/scripts/brigade-setup-worktrees.sh — idempotent worktree + per-pane permissions setup (reused from cli-forge-chef/references/brigade-setup-worktrees.sh, extended for REC-Q's role list)

Reused artefacts (imported from cli-forge-chef)

Do not re-invent these. Import the chef versions verbatim and, where needed, extend:

Never generate scripts/brigade-launch-agent.sh — it's the obsolete wrapper superseded by --append-system-prompt-file (see references/anti-patterns.md §22).

Phase 4 — Hard gates before launch

Before running tmuxinator start {session}:

1. Petri net soundness: run a soundness check (Renew, WoPeD, or a custom reachability check). If the net has deadlocks or dead transitions, stop. (gotchas-quorum.md Q10)
2. Ticket schema valid: validate ticket-template.json against JSON Schema.
3. N validators spawned: count Agent blocks in orchestrator prompt. Must equal floor(N/2) + 1 at minimum for Control, 2 for Plan.
4. Timeouts set: every phase must have a timeout. Missing timeout = guaranteed stall. (anti-patterns.md §11)
5. Contre-chef-inter present: inherit from cli-forge-chef §2.6b — mandatory at tier ≥ M.
6. Cost estimate printed: LLM calls × N = predicted cost. Operator must confirm. (anti-patterns.md §17)
7. Native flag used, no wrapper script: ! grep -q '\$(cat ' ~/.config/tmuxinator/{session}.yml AND ! test -f {project}/scripts/brigade-launch-agent.sh AND grep -qc 'append-system-prompt-file' ~/.config/tmuxinator/{session}.yml. Reject legacy wrapper generation. (anti-patterns.md §18, §22)
8. Setup script executable and idempotent: test -x {project}/scripts/brigade-setup-worktrees.sh AND ! grep -q 'pipefail' $_ AND ! grep -q 'worktree add.*| head' ~/.config/tmuxinator/{session}.yml. (anti-patterns.md §19)
9. One branch per agent worktree: git branch --list 'wt/*' | wc -l equals the count of non-commis agent panes; {base_branch}-{commis_name} branches exist for each commis. (anti-patterns.md §20)
10. Trust prompt auto-accept scheduled: grep -q 'Down Enter' ~/.config/tmuxinator/{session}.yml AND the line contains & so it doesn't block on sleep. (anti-patterns.md §21)
11. Root settings.local.json denies destructive Bash: grep -c 'Bash(tofu apply\|Bash(helm upgrade\|Bash(kubectl apply\|Bash(gh release\|Bash(git push --force' {project}/.claude/settings.local.json | (read n; [[ $n -ge 5 ]]). Teammates inherit the root — strict deny list here is the only line of defence. (gotchas-quorum.md Q4)
12. Apply pane permissions allow infra tools, deny push: test -f {project}-wt-apply/.claude/settings.local.json AND it allows tofu:* / helm:* / kubectl:* AND denies git push:* / git commit:*. (apply-quorum-rec-q.md)
13. Phase-transition certificate dirs present: test -d {project}/.claude/rec-quorum/certificates/ AND test -d {project}/.claude/rec-quorum/plans/. (gotchas-quorum.md Q8)
14. Orchestrator prompt strips Brigade classification logic: ! grep -iE 'classify|decide.*zone|check.*sensitive' {project}/.claude/rec-quorum/orchestrator-{session}.md in the Phase 1 section. (gotchas-quorum.md Q7, anti-patterns.md §10)
15. Control validators are distinct: diff each pair of control-validator-*.md prompts — any two literally identical up to {role} substitution fails the gate. (gotchas-quorum.md Q6, anti-patterns.md §15)

If any gate fails, do NOT proceed. Fix generation first.

Reference index

Anti-patterns to refuse

Read references/anti-patterns.md. Never generate:

• Same quorum for all tasks — trivial tasks at N=5 waste 5× cost; critical at N=1 = no safety
• Majority vote on free text — two agents write "looks good" with different wording; nothing reproducible. Always hash canonical form first
• Reflect + Execute fused — "the planner also executes" loses the planning gate, reintroduces leader bottleneck
• No Control phase ("ça marche en dev") — this is the phase that produces the audit trail; skipping it breaks compliance
• Per-operation threshold sigs with 7 signers on every Edit — overhead explodes, cache invalidation every write; batch at phase boundaries only
• Human-in-the-loop as default — REC-Q should auto-resolve > 98% of cases; humans only for attested escalations

Relationship to cli-forge-chef

cli-forge-chef remains the right tool for dev workflows. cli-forge-quorum is a higher-rigor, higher-cost pattern for when Brigade is insufficient. The two skills share several templates:

• contre-chef-inter-prompt-template.md (lives in cli-forge-chef/references/, reused here)
• tmuxinator-template.md (base structure, adapted for N validators)
• shared-state concept (extended to .jsonl append-only in REC-Q)

cli-forge-quorum imports these via path references, not duplication. See references/upgrade-from-brigade.md for the exact reuse map.

Cost honesty section

Before generating, print to the operator:

REC-Quorum cost estimate for this sprint:
  Task mix:     T trivial, R routine, S sensitive, C critical
  Quorum sizes: 1×T + 3×R + 5×S + 7×C agent-calls per task
  Base cost:    $X at N=1 (Brigade equivalent)
  REC-Q cost:   $Y (about 2-3× for a typical dev sprint)
  Cost rationale: a Brigade sprint stalled for 45 min wastes > $Y anyway.
  Ship anyway? [y/N]

Do not hide the cost. Operators who pay 2-3× and still choose REC-Q do so because stall-recovery is worth more.

Completion criteria

A generation is "done" when:

• All hard gates pass
• Operator confirmed the cost estimate
• Petri net is sound
• One end-to-end test task flows through Phase 0 → 1 → 2 and produces a signed certificate
• tmuxinator doctor reports clean