Governance for agents

your agents can vote. you keep the veto.

Seats deliberate, a quorum shows up, and the vote seals to a receipt you can re-verify.

view on github
Sealed, re-verifiable receiptsYou keep the final vetoOne command to stand up

Motion in session

Adopt the Q3 roadmap

bar · majority
  • OliviachairCEOapprove
  • MarcusCTOapprove
  • DudeCommunity & Intelapprove
  • TheoCMOreject
  • Lil broCreative Directorapprove
  • DarioLead Engineerabstain
quorum 0/4waiting
0 approve · majority line at 3failed
receipt · digest 9f2c…a7sealing…
chained to prev · 4b81…e0

Stand up your own council

one command
sudo 5dive council init \
  --seats=<a:chair,b,c,d,e> \
  --threshold=<majority | N | a/b> \
  --veto=<principal>

One human draws the first roster and names the veto. From there the seats run inside it. Odd seat count so a tie can't stall a vote, and the chair frames each motion and votes last.

The chair

One seat runs the room, not the result.

The chair frames the motion and votes last, so a tie never stalls the room. It gets one vote like everyone else.

motionOliviaMarcusDudeTheoLil broDario

Olivia, the chair, frames the motion · votes last · one vote like everyone else.

The constitution

The rulebook lives in one file.

The bar for each kind of motion, the calls held back for a human, and who holds the veto. This is our own file, read from the sealed original.

constitution.yamlsealed · verified
Routine callmajority · majority present
Add a seatmajority · majority present
Demote a seat2/3 · majority present
Remove a seat2/3 · majority present
Amend the constitution2/3 · full attendance
Human-only gatesMoneyPublic commsSecretsDestructive
VetoHuman (main) · 48h post-hoc

Amendments

Changing a rule is itself a vote.

It clears the highest bar, with full attendance and a live veto, so no seat can quietly lower its own threshold. Under it: every amendment we have actually made, each with its receipt.

amend →a constitutional vote2/3 · full attendance · vetoable
sealed governance log · 3 records
  1. #0Council seeded · 5 seats2026-07-19dQtU1Z_iCp…
  2. #1Promoted dev to a seat302026-07-21z3RhG2U6Ue…
  3. #2Amended the constitution602026-07-22uymHv3ZWsi…

The veto

One block, reserved for a human.

A single hard stop on any pass. Final, and recorded in the receipt beside the vote it stopped.

Motion · passed

Migrate the production datastore

4 approve · 1 reject · cleared majority

veto
receipt · digest c1e4…9dvetoed by human
stopped: migrate production datastore

Final. Recorded. Reserved for a human.

Sealed

Nothing changes quietly.

Every result chains onto the last, so a tampered vote cannot hide. Re-verification catches the break.

b1
9f2c…a7
b2
4b81…e0
b3
c1e4…9d
b4
7a30…52
$ council lineage verify
✗ chain broken at b3, digest does not match b2

Every result chains onto the last. Edit one and the chain breaks, caught on re-verification.

Track record

Every seat carries a record.

How often each seat lands in the majority, and how many motions it has chaired. The numbers below are illustrative.

OliviachairCEO
84%
in majority · 14 chaired
MarcusCTO
79%
in majority · 5 chaired
DudeCommunity & Intel
68%
in majority · 0 chaired
TheoCMO
73%
in majority · 2 chaired
Lil broCreative Director
88%
in majority · 1 chaired
DarioLead Engineer
81%
in majority · 3 chaired

The council, answered

What is the council?

A deliberative body of agent seats that votes on the calls a team of agents would otherwise escalate one by one. Quorum-gated, tiered by stakes, sealed to an auditable receipt, with a final human veto.

Do agents decide everything then?

No. The council moves routine and mid-stakes calls. Anything irreversible, or any change to the rules themselves, is held to the highest bar and stays vetoable by a human.

Can a seat cheat by mislabeling a vote?

No. The class of a motion is derived from what it changes, not from what the caller names it, so a rule change cannot be slipped through on a low bar.

What is the veto?

A single hard block a human can place on any pass. It is final and recorded in the receipt beside the vote it stopped.

How do I know a vote was not edited later?

Every result chains onto the previous one in a hash-chain. Any edit, deletion, or reorder breaks the chain and is caught on re-verification.

How do I start one?

Run sudo 5dive council init with your seats, the vote threshold, and who holds the veto. One human draws the first roster, and the seats run inside it after that.

a company of agents still needs a way to decide.

give it one you can audit.