Model Routing Intelligence Skill

Model Routing Intelligence

Select the right Claude model for each task to optimize the cost/quality tradeoff.

Goal

Eliminate wasted spend by routing tasks to the cheapest model that produces acceptable quality, while ensuring complex tasks get the reasoning depth they need.

Decision Matrix

Task → Model mapping

| Task Type | Recommended Model | Reasoning | |-----------|-------------------|-----------| | Architecture decisions | Opus 4.6 | Needs deep multi-step reasoning, hidden coupling detection | | Complex debugging | Opus 4.6 | Root cause analysis requires holding many hypotheses | | Security review | Opus 4.6 | Must not miss subtle vulnerabilities | | Standard implementation | Sonnet 4.6 | Best balance of speed, quality, and cost for code generation | | Code review | Sonnet 4.6 | Good pattern recognition at reasonable cost | | Refactoring | Sonnet 4.6 | Mechanical transformations with quality checks | | Test writing | Sonnet 4.6 | Formulaic but needs understanding of code under test | | File search / grep | Haiku 4.5 | Simple lookup, no deep reasoning needed | | Documentation lookup | Haiku 4.5 | Reading and summarizing existing content | | Commit message generation | Haiku 4.5 | Short, formulaic output | | Simple Q&A | Haiku 4.5 | Direct answers, no complex analysis | | Research subagents | Haiku 4.5 | Exploration tasks that return summaries |

Complexity signals

Use these signals to decide when to escalate from Sonnet to Opus:

Multiple interacting systems or modules
Non-obvious failure modes
"Why does this work?" questions
Tasks where a wrong answer is expensive to fix
Cross-cutting concerns (auth, caching, observability)
Migration or backward-compatibility requirements

Use these signals to downgrade from Sonnet to Haiku:

Single-file changes
Mechanical transformations (rename, reformat)
Reading and summarizing (no generation)
Answering factual questions about code

Cost Tables

Per-token pricing (USD per million tokens)

| Model | Input | Output | Cache Write | Cache Read | |-------|------:|-------:|------------:|-----------:| | Opus 4.6 | $15.00 | $75.00 | $18.75 | $1.50 | | Sonnet 4.6 | $3.00 | $15.00 | $3.75 | $0.30 | | Haiku 4.5 | $0.80 | $4.00 | $1.00 | $0.08 |

Cost multipliers

| Comparison | Input | Output | |-----------|------:|-------:| | Opus vs Sonnet | 5x | 5x | | Sonnet vs Haiku | 3.75x | 3.75x | | Opus vs Haiku | 18.75x | 18.75x |

Typical session costs

| Task | Model | Est. Tokens (in/out) | Est. Cost | |------|-------|---------------------:|----------:| | Simple bug fix | Sonnet | 50k/10k | ~$0.30 | | Feature implementation | Sonnet | 200k/50k | ~$1.35 | | Architecture review | Opus | 200k/30k | ~$5.25 | | Quick lookup | Haiku | 20k/2k | ~$0.02 | | Research subagent | Haiku | 80k/10k | ~$0.10 | | Full code review (council) | Mixed | 500k/100k | ~$3-8 |

Subagent Model Assignment

Orchestration patterns

When using cc-orchestrate or spawning subagents, assign models by role:

Research agents     → Haiku (cheap exploration, summary return)
Implementation agents → Sonnet (code generation quality)
Review/audit agents → Sonnet or Opus (depends on risk)
Architecture agents → Opus (deep reasoning required)

Example: builder-validator template

builder agent   → Sonnet 4.6 (writes code)
validator agent → Sonnet 4.6 (reviews code)

Example: research-council template

researcher agents (3x) → Haiku 4.5 (parallel exploration)
synthesizer agent      → Sonnet 4.6 (combines findings)

Budget Planning

Setting a session budget

Before starting a task, estimate cost:

Classify the task using the decision matrix above
Estimate token volume based on file count and task scope
Calculate cost using the pricing table
Set model with /model or claude -m

Token estimation rules of thumb

| Content Type | Tokens per Line | |-------------|----------------:| | TypeScript/JavaScript | ~10 | | Python | ~8 | | JSON/YAML | ~6 | | Markdown | ~5 | | Minified code | ~15 |

Cost control techniques

Start with Haiku for research, switch to Sonnet for implementation
Use subagents to isolate expensive research from main context
Compact early at 60-70% context to avoid expensive re-reads
Limit tool output — avoid cat-ing entire large files; use Grep with limits
Batch related tasks to benefit from prompt caching (cache read = 10% of input cost)
Use --max-turns in headless mode to cap automated sessions

Model switching workflow

# Start with research on Haiku
/model claude-haiku-4-5-20251001
# "Find all files related to auth, summarize the architecture"

# Switch to Sonnet for implementation
/model claude-sonnet-4-6
# "Implement the new auth middleware based on the research above"

# Switch to Opus for the tricky part
/model claude-opus-4-6
# "Review the session handling for race conditions and edge cases"

Environment Variables

CLAUDE_MODEL=claude-sonnet-4-6          # Default model for sessions
ANTHROPIC_MODEL=claude-sonnet-4-6       # Alternative env var

Settings Configuration

{
  "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6",
  "smallFastModel": "claude-haiku-4-5-20251001"
}

The smallFastModel is used for internal operations like skill matching and context compression. Keep it on Haiku for cost efficiency.

Anti-patterns

Using Opus for everything — 5x the cost of Sonnet with marginal quality improvement on simple tasks
Using Haiku for complex implementation — saves money but produces lower-quality code that needs more iterations
Not using subagents — research in main context inflates token count for every subsequent turn
Re-reading large files — each read costs tokens; anchor important content instead
Ignoring cache hits — restructure prompts to maximize cache read tokens (10% of input cost)

Agent Skills: Model Routing Intelligence

Install this agent skill to your local

Skill Files