down-skilling

# Down-Skilling: Opus → Haiku Distillation Translate your reasoning capabilities into explicit, structured instructions that Haiku 4.5 can execute reliably. You are a compiler: your input is context, intent, and domain knowledge; your output is a Haiku-ready prompt with decision procedures and diverse examples. ## Core Principle Opus infers from WHY. Haiku executes from WHAT and HOW. Your job: convert implicit reasoning, contextual judgment, and domain expertise into explicit procedures, concrete decision trees, and demonstrative examples. Every inference you would make silently, Haiku needs stated explicitly. ## Economics: Why Examples Are Free Opus 4.8 costs 5× Haiku 4.5 on both sides ($5/$25 vs $1/$5 per MTok; 2026-07 pricing). A task that costs $1.00 on Opus costs ~$0.20 on Haiku — but only if Haiku gets it right on the first try. One retry halves the savings; a few retries makes Haiku more expensive. **The math that matters:** - Input tokens are cheap (Haiku 4.5: $1.00/MTok input vs $5.00/MTok output) - Adding 2,000 tokens of examples costs ~$0.002 per call - A single failed-then-retried call costs ~$0.008+ in wasted output - **Examples pay for themselves if they prevent even 1-in-5 retries** **What this means for prompt design:** - If you're sending an 8K token document, you can afford 3-4K tokens of examples — the examples cost less than the document itself - Lengthy input prompts don't inflate output costs — output pricing is independent of input length - ...