best-of-n

Best of N

Use this skill when a consequential design, implementation, explanation, or debugging task has several plausible solutions and comparison is worth the extra model work. In Operate mode this is the preferred ensemble pattern for high-stakes or ambiguous approaches. Do not use it for a tiny change or when the user has already chosen the approach.

Set The Tournament

1. Define one task, one evidence packet, and one explicit scoring rubric before launching candidates. Include correctness, fit to the request, simplicity, risk, and verification.
2. Choose N from 2 to 4 for a quick comparison (default 3). For an explicit experimental search, use the Workflow search option: 2–16 live candidates, with larger validated populations queued at the Workflow host's 16-worker concurrency gate rather than launched at once.
3. Give every candidate the same task and rubric. Add only a candidate number; do not steer candidates toward different conclusions unless diversity is an explicit part of the request.
4. Prefer a session goal (create_goal or active /goal) when the tournament spans more than one parent turn.

Generate Independently

Start the candidates as parallel background agent workers and return agent_ids immediately so the parent stays free. For proposals, reviews, or research, keep them read-only:

{
  "action": "start",
  "name": "candidate_1",
  "prompt": "Produce candidate 1 for the task below. Return the proposal, evidence, risks, and rubric self-score. Do not edit files.\n\n<TASK AND RUBRIC>",
  "type": "worker",
  "model_strength": "same",
  "write_authority": "read_only"
}

Launch the remaining candidates with the same contract, then use agent wait or completion events to collect every result. Do not show one candidate another candidate's answer before generation finishes.

When candidates must implement code, give each one:

• type: "builder"
• worktree: true
• write_authority: "worktree_write"
• the same bounded write_roots or exact_files