vc-predict, Multi-Persona Pre-Analysis

Output style: Follow process/development-protocols/communication-standards.md, answer-first, plain language, no unexplained jargon, TL;DR on long responses.

Five expert personas independently analyze a proposed change, then debate conflicts to produce a consensus verdict before a single line of code is written.

When to Use

• Before implementing a major or high-risk feature
• Before a significant refactor or architecture change
• Evaluating competing technical approaches
• Stress-testing assumptions in a proposed design

When NOT to Use

• Trivial or low-risk changes (use debugger for bugs, generate-plan / plan-agent for already-decided tasks)
• Already-approved work with no open design questions
• Pure dependency upgrades with no API changes

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Mode Selection

vc-predict runs in Simple or Deep mode. Choose based on the conditions below.

	Simple	Deep
Context source	Approach description already in context	Approach description + historical research subagent
Subagent spawned	No	Yes, reads git log, prior reports, test failure history
Persona debate quality	Reasons from first principles	"We tried this 3 months ago and hit X"
When to use	Contained feature, clear scope, no prior attempts	See trigger conditions below

Deep Mode, Trigger Conditions (any one is sufficient)

• The approach involves a pattern previously attempted in this codebase (git history may show prior attempts)
• The approach touches a surface with known failure history: auth, billing, container lifecycle, streaming, or WebSocket reconnect
• Caller explicitly requests deep mode (--deep flag or "use deep predict")
• The plan is COMPLEX shape and this is the pre-checklist predict call

Simple Mode, Trigger Conditions (default)