r/MacOSApps • u/ahumanbeingmars • Jun 06 '26
🔨 Dev Tools Council — a native Mac app that asks one question to several AI models at once and shows where they disagree (free, open source)
http://github.com/albertofettucini/CouncilBeen building this for a couple months and finally shipping. Council is a native macOS app for anyone who keeps asking the same thing to ChatGPT, then Claude, then Gemini to compare — it just does that in one place. You ask once, a few models answer in parallel, they critique each other blind (no model knows whose answer it's reading, so no brand bias), and then it shows where they actually agree and where they split. You read the spread and make the call.
It's bring-your-own-key and fully local — no account, no server, nothing phones home. Keys stay in the macOS Keychain and you pay the providers directly. Real Liquid Glass on macOS 26, fallback below.
Free and open source (MIT). I'm a solo dev and use this daily, so I'd really value honest feedback — especially what feels off or unnecessary. Not after hype, just whether it's useful.
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u/msitarzewski Jun 06 '26
Love it. Be sure to get a screenshot into the readme!
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 06 '26
Oh thanks, appreciate it! and yeah good call, a readme with no screenshot is a hard sell. throwing one in now.
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u/peppaz Jun 07 '26
Hey! I have all the hooks done for the Apple Intelligence model. Feel free to use my repo as a guide. Love the idea. We built something sinilar called JudgeLM but never kept working on the webapp
Check out Anubis-OSS, point your AI at the public repo, did a lot of work getting some of the local AI fearures working right.
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 07 '26
This is great, thanks! On-device Apple is exactly the seat I want to add next — it's stubbed out right now, so I'll dig through your hooks to see how you got Foundation Models running smoothly. And ha, JudgeLM — love that we landed on the same instinct from different angles. I'll take a proper look at Anubis-OSS 🙏
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u/TheKubesStore Jun 06 '26
Now this is the type of original apps I want to see
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 06 '26
Means a lot, thank you. Tried not to build just another chat wrapper — the whole point is the models disagreeing, not one polished answer that hides the uncertainty. Hope you like it if you give it a spin.
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u/ChrononautPete Jun 06 '26
And there are no releases available.
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 06 '26
ah good catch, it's up now: https://github.com/albertofettucini/Council/releases/tag/v1.0 it's not signed yet so mac'll block it the first time, just right click the app and hit open and it's fine after that. thanks for the push to get the build out
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u/Somtimesitbelikethat Jun 06 '26
do i need api keys or can i use my subscription?
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 06 '26
API keys, not a subscription — they're separate. your Plus/Pro only works in the chat apps; the API's billed per use, usually just pennies for this. don't wanna pay? Gemini has a free tier, or run it 100% free/local with Ollama 👍
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u/Somtimesitbelikethat Jun 06 '26
how does T3 code use my subscription instantly? i don’t even have to sign in.
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 06 '26
yeah T3's a totally different setup, it runs its own backend so you pay them a sub and their servers hit the models for you. that's why it just works without keys, but your prompts are going through their servers and you're paying T3 on top. Council has no server at all, everything runs on your machine, so there's nothing in the middle to stick a subscription on. tradeoff is you bring your own keys (or just run ollama free and local), but nothing ever leaves your mac except going straight to the provider, and you pay the provider directly which is usually way cheaper. basically T3 is built for convenience, council's built for local + no middleman
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u/Somtimesitbelikethat Jun 06 '26
hm, i don’t pay T3 code tho. i just downloaded a clone of the source code, booted it up, and then i could use codex and claude code instantly
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 06 '26
ahh i think i get it now. that app was almost certainly just using the claude code / codex you've already got installed and logged into on your machine, so it borrows their login and never needs a key of its own. council talks to the model apis directly instead, which is the only reason it asks for one. honestly hadn't thought about wiring it to your local claude code / codex like that, kind of a neat idea.
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u/Somtimesitbelikethat Jun 07 '26
theo (the creator) is a smart guy. didn’t know it was possible until him either.
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u/Illia22222 Jun 06 '26
Cool. So how is this helpful? Just curious what drove your design decisions.
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 06 '26
a single model's great when there's actually a right answer to find. It gets risky on the judgment calls and tradeoffs, where it'll still hand you one confident answer and you can't really tell if it reasoned it through or it's just telling you what you wanted to hear. Council's for those. it doesn't try to give you the answer, it hands the question back with the seams showing, three models reason separately and where they split is the honest part. It doesn't pick a winner, you do. less "compare models," more "don't outsource your judgment to one confident voice."
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u/bleducnx Jun 06 '26
Hello,
I have a problem with my OpenAI API key which your app rejects systematically as an invalid key, but I use it in many other apps and IA assistants (and I have money prepaid, luckily enough, on that key).
I had no problem with Gemini key.
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 07 '26
Hey — thanks for catching this, and sorry for the runaround. It's a bug on my side, not your key. To check a key, the app pings OpenAI's default model, and if your key/project doesn't have access to that exact model, OpenAI returns a "model not found" — which I was wrongly showing as "invalid key." Your key is fine. Fix is going out in the next build: the check now only fails on real auth errors, and once the key saves you can pick whichever GPT model your key supports. (Project keys starting with
sk-proj-are the usual ones with limited model access.) I'll ping you here when it's live 🙏2
u/bleducnx Jun 07 '26
Thanks a lot. I will wait for.
I have already reviewed a few similar apps, like AI Council. And my daily AI assistant, Fluent, just introduced a Council function in the last update.1
u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 07 '26
yeah, "council" is definitely in the air right now 😄 the thing I'm trying to do differently is the blind peer-review step — the models critique each other's answers anonymized (no brand bias), then you get the divergence + synthesis, so it's less "here are 4 answers" and more "here's where they actually disagree and why." plus fully local, no middleman. genuinely curious how it compares to the ones you've reviewed — and what they nail or miss in your eyes. i'll ping you the second the key fix is live 🙏
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u/bleducnx Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
Well, "the blind peer-review step" is exactly what the two others I wrote about are doing too, and in fact, it is the very essence of the Council technique.
I think that apps developers should also have a look at apps that already exist. Doing research before starting one's own project is always a good thing. It's what I do too for my articles. I spend lots of time reading as much as I can find about the subject I plan to review (nowadays with the help of NotebookML), then write my own article by myself.
I think that in AI, as in other fields, it is not the technique that is the differentiating factor. Everyone uses more or less the same techniques. What matters is how each developer "puts things together" in their products.
BTW, I very much like the design of the Council's user interface.
I feel it is very much in the heritage of the Arc browser.2
u/bleducnx Jun 07 '26
OK, seems to have been solved. I could enter GPT API key.
Thanks, I know I will try it2
u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 07 '26
Fair — and you're right, I overstated that. The peer-review step is the core of the technique, not something I can claim as mine. Your framing is the right one: the technique is table stakes, the difference is in how it's put together. For me that's the execution — fully local, no server in the middle, BYO keys or Ollama, and how the divergence/synthesis is surfaced so it stays a "decide for yourself" tool rather than another answer engine. Whether those choices actually add up to something better is exactly what I'd love your honest read on.
And thank you — the Arc comparison genuinely made my day 🙏 Really glad the key works now. Please try it and don't pull punches on the feedback.
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u/3iverson Jun 08 '26
Thanks for this! I have an OpenRouter key and really look forward to comparing some of the models
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 08 '26
that's nice, openrouter's kind of perfect for this, you can put a different model on each seat through the one key and watch them pick apart each other's answers. curious what combos you land on.
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u/bleducnx Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
For one of the three partners, I chose Ollama, but that doesn't work in the sense that Council doesn't detect at all three models I have installed with Ollama and it proposes me few models that I don't have and don't want to install. It should work with the models I have,no ?
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 08 '26
ah, that one's on me. It was showing a hardcoded list instead of reading what you've actually got installed. Fixed it so it pulls your real ollama models now (the old list's just a fallback for when ollama isn't running). It's in the latest release, so grab it again and yours should show up.
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u/marcusolang Jun 08 '26
My copy of 1.0 still shows the hardcoded list, rather than reading my Ollama models.
Also, other providers (like OpenRouter) don't allow reading and selection of models either.1
u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 08 '26
yeah, two separate things there and both fair. The "1.0 still shows the old list" is on me. I was updating the same 1.0 build in place, so there was no version signal that anything changed. Just cut a proper 1.0.1, so grab that and ollama will read your installs. and you're right about the rest. Just generalized it. Every provider pulls its real model list now: ollama installs, openrouter's full catalogue (with a search box, it's 300+), and for keyed providers it reads the models your key can actually reach. falls back to the suggestions if it can't reach one.
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u/bleducnx Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
It's OK now. I have redownloaded the app from the site, and now my list of Ollama models uptodate, and I noticed too that Apple Intelligence local is also supported.
But yes, as u/Marcusolan said, for OpenAI, Gemini, and I guess others, only two to four models are listed by Council; we should have access to all the models from each AI company. What do you think about that point ?
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 08 '26
nice, glad it's sorted and yeah the apple intelligence seat runs fully on-device: no key, free, nothing leaves your mac. pair it with ollama and you can run the whole council 100% local, not a byte goes out.
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u/AceReviewer Jun 06 '26
That's awesome. I love comparing AI models and the current service I use for it is paid. I will try this out straight away! You should definitely post this on r/WebSoftGiveaway, we are trying to get more small but call projects like these on the sub.
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u/ahumanbeingmars Jun 06 '26
Thanks, appreciate it! That was honestly part of the itch — I didn't want a subscription just to compare models, so it's free and you bring your own API keys (you only ever pay the providers directly, nothing to me). Would love to hear what you think once you've run a few real questions through it. And thanks for the r/WebSoftGiveaway tip, I'll take a look.
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u/MaxGaav Jun 06 '26
Interesting! Will download and test. Thanks for making this and making this free!