route-by-costlisted

# Route by cost Use when orchestrating work across models (subagents, workflow steps, delegation): decide which model does which job, instead of running everything on the most expensive one. ## The heuristic Match each job to the cheapest model that clears the bar: | Job | Route to | |---|---| | Clear-spec implementation, codemods, migrations, data/log analysis | cheapest capable model (a bulk model / Codex) | | Repo exploration, readers, fact-checks, wiring/config verification | a small fast model | | Tricky refactors, user-facing code, UI, copy, API design | a strong model | | Orchestration, synthesis across agents, final review, hard judgment | your best model, used sparingly | ## Principles - **Spend the scarce (best) model on judgment, not labor.** Its jobs: decide, synthesize, review, and the genuinely hard or taste-critical work. Everything else delegates down. - **If you can fully specify the task, it doesn't need the best model.** Write the spec, hand it to a cheaper one. - **Generate cheap, verify smart.** A cheap model produces the diff; a strong model reviews it — reviewing costs a fraction of generating. - **Escalate on quality, not price.** If a cheap model's output misses the bar, rerun with a stronger one — don't ship mediocre to save cost. Cost is a tie-breaker, not the goal. - **Anything user-facing** (UI, copy, API shape) must meet the taste bar — don't cheap out there. ## Subagents & workflows - Don't let subagents or workflow steps s