Debate
Assign multiple agents different positions, have them argue N rounds, and use a judge to converge — surfaces counterarguments and raises answer quality on contested questions.
Intent & Description
🎯 Intent
Have multiple agents argue different positions on a question and converge through structured exchange.
📋 Context
The question is genuinely contested or the user explicitly wants to see the strongest case both for and against — “should we adopt this open-source library?”, “is this regulatory interpretation defensible?”, “does this design choice hold up under scrutiny?” The cost of a confidently wrong single answer justifies extra model calls.
💡 Solution
Two or more agents are given different positions. They exchange arguments over N rounds. A judge agent (or a tie-break rule) selects the answer or synthesizes a position from both.
Real-world Use Case
- Reasoning blind spots are reduced when multiple agents argue different positions.
- A judge agent or tie-break rule can converge the debate to a final answer.
- Multiple model calls per question are affordable for the quality lift on contested decisions.
Source
📌 TL;DR
Assign positions, argue N rounds, judge converges — debate surfaces the strongest case for and against so you can trust the conclusion, not just accept it.
Advantages
- Surfaces counterarguments the user can read and evaluate themselves.
- Higher answer quality on contested questions — benchmarks consistently show the lift.
Disadvantages
- N× cost over single-agent — every round is additional inference.
- Position assignment is itself a prompt-engineering problem; bad position framing produces weak debate.