Quorum — Reference Implementation

A working Python implementation of the Quorum multi-critic quality validation system.

Quorum evaluates artifacts (agent configurations, research documents, code) against domain-specific rubrics using specialized critics that are required to provide grounded evidence for every finding.

---

Quick Start

1. Install

cd reference-implementation
pip install -e .

Or without installing:

pip install -r requirements.txt
python -m quorum --help

2. Configure API Keys

Quorum uses LiteLLM as its universal provider, supporting Anthropic, OpenAI, Mistral, Groq, and 100+ others.

# Anthropic (Claude)
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your-key-here

# OpenAI
export OPENAI_API_KEY=your-key-here

3. Run Your First Validation

# Validate the included example research document
quorum run --target examples/sample-research.md --depth quick

# Validate the example agent config
quorum run --target examples/sample-agent-config.yaml --rubric agent-config

# Use a specific rubric
quorum run --target my-research.md --rubric research-synthesis --depth standard

# Batch: validate all markdown files in a directory
quorum run --target ./docs/ --pattern "*.md" --rubric research-synthesis

# Cross-artifact: validate with a relationships manifest
quorum run --target my-spec.md --relationships quorum-relationships.yaml

---

Usage

Usage: quorum [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

  Quorum — Multi-critic quality validation.

Options:
  --version  Show the version and exit.
  -v         Enable debug logging
  --help     Show this message and exit.

Commands:
  run            Validate an artifact against a rubric
  rubrics list   List available built-in rubrics
  rubrics show   Show criteria for a specific rubric
  config init    Interactive first-run setup

quorum run

quorum run \
  --target <file-or-dir>              # required: artifact, directory, or glob to validate
  --depth quick|standard|thorough     # depth profile (default: quick)
  --rubric <name-or-path>             # rubric to use (auto-detected if omitted)
  --pattern "*.md"                    # filter files when --target is a directory
  --relationships <manifest.yaml>     # cross-artifact manifest for Phase 2 consistency checks
  --output-dir ./my-runs              # where to write outputs (default: ./quorum-runs/)
  --verbose                           # show full evidence for all findings

Exit codes:

• 0 — PASS or PASS_WITH_NOTES (no blocking issues)
• 1 — Error (bad arguments, missing file, API failure)
• 2 — REVISE or REJECT (validation failed; artifact needs work)

---

Depth Profiles

Depth	Critics	Fix Loops	Use For
quick	correctness, completeness	0	Fast feedback, drafts
standard	correctness, completeness, security, code_hygiene	0	Most work, PR reviews
thorough	all 4 shipped critics (more as they land)	1 (Fixer proposals)	Critical decisions, production changes

All depth profiles include the deterministic pre-screen (10 checks, no LLM cost) before any critics run.

Edit quorum/configs/*.yaml to customize model assignments and critic panels.

---

Rubrics

Rubrics define what "good" looks like for a domain. Built-in rubrics:

Name	Domain	Criteria
research-synthesis	Research documents	Citations, logic, completeness, causation
agent-config	Agent configurations	Model assignments, permissions, error handling
python-code	Python source files	25 criteria (PC-001–PC-025); auto-detected on .py files

# List available rubrics
quorum rubrics list

# Show rubric criteria
quorum rubrics show research-synthesis

Custom Rubrics

Create a JSON file matching this schema:

{
  "name": "My Custom Rubric",
  "domain": "my-domain",
  "version": "1.0",
  "criteria": [
    {
      "id": "CR-001",
      "criterion": "What to check",
      "severity": "HIGH",
      "evidence_required": "What proof must be shown",
      "why": "Why this matters"
    }
  ]
}

Then: quorum run --target my-file.txt --rubric ./my-rubric.json

---

Outputs

Each quorum run creates a timestamped directory:

quorum-runs/
└── 20260223-143022-sample-research/
    ├── run-manifest.json              # Run parameters, flags, model config
    ├── artifact.txt                   # The artifact (copy)
    ├── rubric.json                    # Rubric used
    ├── prescreen.json                 # Deterministic pre-screen results (PS-001–PS-010)
    ├── critics/
    │   ├── correctness-findings.json
    │   ├── completeness-findings.json
    │   ├── security-findings.json
    │   ├── code_hygiene-findings.json
    │   └── cross_consistency-findings.json  # Phase 2 (if --relationships used)
    ├── verdict.json                   # Machine-readable verdict
    └── report.md                      # Human-readable report

For batch runs, each file gets its own timestamped sub-directory. A top-level batch-verdict.json summarizes the full run.

---

Architecture

quorum run --target file --relationships manifest.yaml
  ↓
pipeline.py          load config, rubric, artifact
  ↓
prescreen.py         10 deterministic checks (PS-001–PS-010)
                     → prescreen.json (no LLM, runs instantly)
  ↓
supervisor.py        Phase 1: classify domain, dispatch critics concurrently
                     (ThreadPoolExecutor, max 4 critics in parallel;
                      batch files run concurrently max 3)
  ↓
correctness.py    }
completeness.py   }  each critic → LLM → structured findings (parallel)
security.py       }  (framework-grounded: OWASP ASVS, CWE, NIST SA-11,
code_hygiene.py   }   ISO 25010:2023, CISQ)
  ↓
fixer.py             Phase 1.5: proposes text replacements for CRITICAL/HIGH
                     (only if max_fix_loops > 0; thorough depth default: 1)
  ↓
cross_artifact.py    Phase 2: cross-artifact consistency critic
                     (only if --relationships provided)
                     receives Phase 1 findings as context — NOT verdicts
  ↓
aggregator.py        deduplicate, resolve conflicts, assign verdict
  ↓
output.py            terminal report + write run directory

The core principle: Every finding must have evidence (a quote, a tool result, a rubric citation). The Aggregator rejects ungrounded claims. This prevents LLM hand-waving.

Phase 1 vs Phase 2: Phase 1 critics evaluate each file independently. Phase 2 (Cross-Artifact Consistency) receives Phase 1 findings — not verdicts — as context and evaluates declared relationships between files. This keeps phases independent: Phase 2 sees what was found, not a judgment.

---

Configuration

Quorum uses YAML config files for depth profiles. See quorum/configs/:

# quorum/configs/quick.yaml
critics:
  - correctness
  - completeness

model_tier1: claude-opus-4     # Strong model (judgment-heavy roles)
model_tier2: claude-sonnet-4   # Efficient model (critic execution)

max_fix_loops: 0
depth_profile: quick
temperature: 0.1
max_tokens: 4096

Model names follow LiteLLM conventions — any provider LiteLLM supports works here.

---

Cross-Artifact Validation

When your project has multiple files that should agree with each other — a spec and its implementation, an API contract and its consumers, a config and its schema — use --relationships to declare those relationships and let Quorum check them.

Relationship Manifest

Create quorum-relationships.yaml:

version: "1.0"
relationships:
  - source: src/api_handler.py
    target: docs/api-spec.md
    type: implements
    description: "Handler must implement all endpoints declared in spec"

  - source: docs/api-spec.md
    target: src/api_handler.py
    type: documents
    description: "Spec must document all public endpoints in handler"

  - source: quorum/critics/security.py
    target: quorum/configs/standard.yaml
    type: delegates
    description: "Security critic is enabled in standard depth profile"

  - source: data/output-schema.json
    target: src/pipeline.py
    type: schema_contract
    description: "Pipeline output must conform to declared schema"

Relationship types: implements, documents, delegates, schema_contract

Running with Relationships

quorum run \
  --target ./src/ \
  --relationships quorum-relationships.yaml \
  --depth standard

The Cross-Artifact Consistency critic evaluates each declared relationship, looking for mismatches, undocumented behavior, and broken contracts. Findings use a Locus model — each finding references both files with role annotations (source_role, target_role) and a source_hash to ensure the finding is pinned to the artifact version that was evaluated.

---

Extending Quorum

Adding a New Critic

1. Create quorum/critics/my_critic.py inheriting from BaseCritic
2. Implement name, system_prompt, and build_prompt()
3. Register it in quorum/agents/supervisor.py → CRITIC_REGISTRY
4. Add the name to your config's critics list

See quorum/critics/correctness.py for a complete example.

Adding a Cross-Artifact Critic

The Cross-Artifact Consistency critic does not inherit from BaseCritic — it uses a separate CrossArtifactCritic base class with a different interface, because it operates on pairs/groups of files rather than a single artifact. It also receives Phase 1 findings as additional context via build_prompt().

Supported relationship types for manifest declarations: implements, documents, delegates, schema_contract. New types can be added by extending the relationship type registry.

---

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.