Set Up Council

Part of Council. Start here to configure the product.

Set Up a Council

A council is a route in your routes.toml with council = true. The Council page in the app builds one for you. Until your first council result arrives it opens on Setup, six steps: check that Route’s providers are on, choose who reviews, decide what blocks, save (or download routes.toml), connect your machine and run your first review. After that the Council tab, where you change members and rules, opens first and Setup moves to the last tab.

[routes."review.council"]
council = true
quorum = 2        # the fewest reports needed before the council can pass
block = "P1"      # the least severe finding that blocks: P0, P1, P2 or P3
rounds = 1        # revision rounds a blocked change gets, 0 to 3
role = "review"
candidates = [
  { target = "codex/sol", effort = "high" },
  { target = "claude/opus", effort = "high" },
]

P0 is the most severe. The default quorum is 2 (or the number of candidates when fewer than 2 are configured); P1 and above block, and a blocked change gets one revision round.

Verify the Configuration

Install the CLI and check that your council members are available with cedr route pools. Council uses Route’s configuration and plan readers, even if you do not use ordinary delegation routes.

A quorum must be at least 1 and cannot exceed the number of configured candidates. Revision rounds range from 0 to 3; 0 means the first gate stands without a revision cycle. Pick members who can independently assess the same change.

The Ask your agent menu at the top right of the Council page in the app has Review my current change, Fix a blocked change (works through the latest blocked result and runs the review again) and Tune my council (suggests member, quorum or severity changes from past results), beside Set up Council here. Each copies a prompt filled in with your organization’s settings; see Ask Your Agent in the App.

Remove Council

Removing Council turns off the council route and removes the review instructions from your agents; Route keeps working. If the machine pulls routes saved for the organization, turn Council off on the Council page in the app instead (owners and admins). In the app, Ask your agent has Remove Council from this machine; for a local routes.toml it is:

Remove Cedr Council from this machine, keeping Cedr Route.

Before deleting anything, list every file, setting, registration and scheduled job you would remove, with its path, and wait for my approval on each one. Skip anything I want to keep. Back up every configuration file you will change or delete into a new folder ~/cedr-backup-<YYYY-MM-DD>/ first, keeping its path. Never touch my organization's data in the cedr.dev app. Finish by telling me what you removed, where the backups are and what is left.

1. In the routes.toml cedr uses ($CEDR_ROUTES, .cedr/routes.toml in this repo, or ~/.config/cedr/routes.toml), show me the [routes."review.council"] section and offer to set enabled = false in it or delete the section.

2. In my agents' instruction files (~/.claude/CLAUDE.md, ~/.codex/AGENTS.md), show me the line in the ## Cedr Route section about council_plan and council_merge, and remove only that line.

3. Keep the cedr MCP server and the rest of routes.toml; Route still uses them. Finally run cedr route list and show me that Route still lists its routes.

By hand: back up routes.toml, set enabled = false under [routes."review.council"] (or delete that section), remove the Council line from the ## Cedr Route section of your agents’ instruction files, then run cedr route list.

Continue with Run a Council Review.