# Debate

> Assign multiple agents different positions, have them argue N rounds, and use a judge to converge — surfaces counterarguments and raises answer quality on contested questions.

- **Category**: Agentic AI
- **Subcategory**: Multi-Agent
- **Canonical URL**: https://designpattern.fyi/patterns/debate/

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## Description
**Intent**: Have multiple agents argue different positions on a question and converge through structured exchange.
**Context**: The question is genuinely contested or the user explicitly wants to see the strongest case both for and against — "should we adopt this open-source library?", "is this regulatory interpretation defensible?", "does this design choice hold up under scrutiny?" The cost of a confidently wrong single answer justifies extra model calls.
**Solution**: Two or more agents are given different positions. They exchange arguments over N rounds. A judge agent (or a tie-break rule) selects the answer or synthesizes a position from both.



## Use Cases
- Reasoning blind spots are reduced when multiple agents argue different positions.
- A judge agent or tie-break rule can converge the debate to a final answer.
- Multiple model calls per question are affordable for the quality lift on contested decisions.






## Trade-offs


### Advantages

- Surfaces counterarguments the user can read and evaluate themselves.

- Higher answer quality on contested questions — benchmarks consistently show the lift.




### Considerations & Drawbacks

- N× cost over single-agent — every round is additional inference.

- Position assignment is itself a prompt-engineering problem; bad position framing produces weak debate.







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**Reference**: [Original Source](https://www.agentpatternscatalog.org/patterns/debate/)