Open Council is a Tauri desktop app for personal decision support. It combines:

• long-running chat memory about the user (local markdown profile files),
• structured decision analysis (options, variables, recommendation),
• a multi-agent committee debate that stress-tests a decision from different viewpoints.

• Chat workspace for general conversation and context gathering.
• Decision workspace with:
  • decision-specific chat,
  • live structured summary panel (options, variables, pros_cons, recommendation),
  • status progression through the decision lifecycle.
• Committee workflow:
  • 5 debating agents (rationalist, advocate, contrarian, visionary, pragmatist),
  • 1 moderator synthesis,
  • quick and full debate modes,
  • streamed tokens and persisted debate transcript.
• Outcome logging and reflection:
  • user logs what happened after choosing,
  • app sends a reflection prompt back through the assistant flow so profile memory can improve.
• Editable local files:
  • profile memory markdown files,
  • committee agent prompt markdown files,
  • optional per-agent model overrides.

• Frontend: React 19, Vite, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS v4, Radix UI
• Desktop + backend: Tauri 2, Rust
• Storage:
  • SQLite (database.sqlite) for conversations, messages, decisions, debate rounds
  • local markdown files for profile and agent prompts
  • local JSON config for API key/model settings
• LLM routing: OpenRouter Chat Completions API (streaming + tool calls)

• Node.js 20+ and npm
• Rust stable and Cargo
• Tauri system prerequisites for your OS
  • Windows: WebView2 runtime

1. Install dependencies:

npm install

2. Start the desktop app:

npm run tauri dev

This launches Vite at http://localhost:1420 and opens the Tauri window. Port 1420 is fixed (strictPort: true).

3. First run setup in Settings:

• add your OpenRouter API key (openrouter.ai/keys),
• choose a default model (for example anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5),
• save.

Decisions move through these statuses:

• exploring: decision context is still being collected
• analyzing: structured variables/options are taking shape
• debating: committee debate is running
• recommended: recommendation is ready
• decided: user has made a choice
• reviewed: user logged the real-world outcome

The app uses Tauri app_data_dir. On Windows this is typically:

%APPDATA%\com.opencouncil.app\

Key files/folders:

• database.sqlite
• config.json
• profile/*.md
• agents/*.md

Notes:

• config.json stores the OpenRouter API key and model settings locally.
• Profile and agent files are editable from the app UI and via your file explorer.

• npm run dev: Vite web dev server only (no Tauri backend process)
• npm run tauri dev: full desktop app dev mode
• npm run build: frontend production build
• npm run tauri build: desktop production build/bundle
• npm run test: all frontend + backend tests
• npm run test:all: same as above
• npm run test:frontend: Vitest frontend suite
• npm run test:frontend:watch: Vitest watch mode
• npm run test:frontend:unit: frontend tests matching unit_
• npm run test:frontend:integration: frontend tests matching integration_
• npm run test:frontend:e2e: Playwright tests
• npm run test:backend: full Cargo test suite (src-tauri/Cargo.toml)
• npm run test:backend:unit: backend tests matching unit_
• npm run test:backend:integration: backend tests matching integration_
• npm run test:backend:e2e: backend tests matching e2e_

• Frontend integration/e2e tests mock Tauri invoke so they can run in browser test environments.
• Backend tests run against in-memory/temp SQLite and temp filesystem directories.

Release binaries are built by GitHub Actions on published GitHub Releases:

• workflow: .github/workflows/release.yml
• trigger: release.published
• targets: Linux x64, Windows x64, macOS arm64, macOS x64

Current CI config does not include code signing/notarization.