@wmaurer/fof

fist of five — group decision-making in the terminal.

Run a quick check with your team: everyone holds up between one and five fingers (and optionally a closed fist for a veto), and fof collects the counts and shows the spread. In consensus mode it tells you whether the room is aligned, mixed, or blocked. In poll mode the numbers mean whatever your question makes them.

Install / run

No install needed:

npx @wmaurer/fof

Or install globally:

npm install -g @wmaurer/fof
fof

How a round works

1. Opening — title screen. space / enter to start. ? for settings. q to quit.
2. Countdown — 3 · 2 · 1. A beat for everyone to make up their mind.
3. Show your fist — everyone holds up their hand at the same time. space / enter when you've all looked around the room.
4. Collect — type how many people held up each number. Tab or ↑ / ↓ between fields, Enter on Submit to finish.
5. Results — a horizontal bar chart, the average, and (in consensus mode) a verdict. space / enter to run another round.

Esc returns to the opening from any step (with a confirm prompt where you'd lose work).

What the numbers mean

In consensus mode

The canonical "fist of five" semantics — each number has a fixed meaning:

| Vote | Meaning | | -------- | ------------------------------------ | | 5 | Strong support — let's go. | | 4 | I support this. | | 3 | I can live with it. | | 2 | I have reservations — let's discuss. | | 1 | I have serious concerns. | | 0 🪨 | Veto — we must not proceed. |

In poll mode

The 1–5 scale is whatever your question makes it. fof just collects the counts and shows the spread; it's the question itself that gives each number meaning. For example:

"Is this vibe-coded (1) or AI-engineered (5)?"

The veto (0) is also available in poll mode if enabled, though it's primarily a consensus-mode concept.

The 0 vote (veto)

By default, the ballot is 1–5 only. The 0 vote — a closed fist, called a veto in this tool — is opt-in: turn on Include 0 (veto) in Settings.

In consensus mode, a single veto blocks the decision regardless of how many 5s are in the room. Some teams find this powerful as a "stop the train" signal; others find it discouraging or prone to misuse — which is why it ships off by default. Turn it on if your team has agreed it's a real option.

Modes

Toggle between consensus (default) and poll in Settings.

| Mode | What you see | | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | consensus | Bar chart, average, and a verdict: ✓ Consensus / ⚠ Needs discussion / ✗ Blocked. | | poll | Bar chart and average only. No verdict. |

The consensus verdicts use a fixed threshold of 3:

• ✓ Consensus — everyone voted ≥ 3 (and no vetoes).
• ⚠ Needs discussion — at least one vote is 1 or 2. The count of below-threshold votes is shown.
• ✗ Blocked — at least one veto was cast (only possible when Include 0 is on). The count of vetoes is shown.

Use poll mode when you want to see the spread without the social pressure of a pass/fail label — e.g. temperature checks where you're not yet asking for a decision.

Settings persistence

Settings live at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fof/settings.json (or ~/.config/fof/settings.json on most setups) and are loaded on startup.

Requirements

Node.js 20 or newer.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.