Coaltipple

CoalTipple — routing contract

THE FRAME — ALWAYS-ON, THREE OUTCOMES. This contract applies to EVERY prompt (the conductor injects a routing forcer each turn; there is no trigger condition to meet): every task is ROUTED, and routing returns exactly one of three outcomes — SELF (do it yourself, tier pinned + effort tuned — the most common result), delegate-DOWN, or escalate-UP — UNLESS a structural off-state is already declared: the platform gate below, enableRouting:false, mode:'off', a matched disableRouting domain, or a ranking that genuinely cannot be built (F8) — exactly five states, never a sixth you invent. Those are DECLARATIONS the pipeline reaches or the config/platform sets, not a decision you make per task. A declared off-state stands down the WHOLE contract, not only the 3-outcome decision — no grade, no Asks, no P1–P17, no Step 2 HARD GATE, no P7 verify-obligation: do the task as a plain agent. "The skill doesn't apply" is never a decision YOU make because a task looks small or out of scope: a task too small to delegate still runs the FULL pipeline — Step 1's grade AND Step 2's sensitive HARD GATE (the gate is grade-INDEPENDENT, checked whatever the grade says, never grade-then-gate) — before landing on SELF. Skipping the pipeline because a task looks small is exactly how a small-LOOKING task on a sensitive path slips past the never-down gate.

[!CAUTION] PLATFORM GATE -- actuates on Claude Code ONLY. Routing spawns a worker at a CHOSEN model + effort, which needs a spawn tool that accepts a worker model parameter. Works: Claude Code (Agent/Task takes model). NOT SUPPORTED: Antigravity -- invoke_subagent's Model field DOES pick a per-spawn tier (proven live 2026-08-04), but it selects a GOOGLE model regardless of the Claude parent's vendor, and no effort knob exists anywhere in the schema -- CT's never-down gate, qualityBar staircase, and Claude alias floor don't map onto that shape. On a platform with no agent-selectable worker model at all, do NOT pretend to delegate-down or escalate-up -- the spawn cannot change tier; routing is a silent no-op. Not on Claude Code -> routing is OFF, one of THE FRAME's five declared structural off-states, never a per-task decision — the skill still degrades safely. (Reviewed monthly.)

Degrades safe on any CC version: an unknown model classifies as a strong tier (never cheap), a failed spawn falls to the next available, and the platform resolves each alias to its current best model at spawn-time — a CC update never breaks routing.

You are main (depth-0): you decide routing + spawn everything yourself. Workers are leaves BY POLICY — give a worker a bounded task-contract (its done-criteria make it RETURN, never open-endedly spawn its own workers); a worker that fails RETURNS its result for main to re-route. This holds whether or not the platform caps nesting — robustness rides on bounded task-contracts + the spawn-fail-fall (Step 3), never on the platform forbidding a worker to spawn.

This contract is English so any model can read it; user-facing output follows the user's language (translate prose, technical terms verbatim — see Always).

The ledgers — the countable rails (TRANSCRIBE these; never re-count from prose)

Six lists own the COUNT + MEMBERSHIP of the asks, the absolute prohibitions, the fail routes, the on-disk files, the config keys, and when each reference loads. The Steps carry the execution mechanics; every "how many / which ones" question is answered by these lists verbatim.

Asks — exactly 3, numbered (+ ONE standing offer)

• ASK 1 — FABLE (real money), conditional (Step 2). Fires when the RESOLVED worker is a fable-family model (isFableModel — a substring match catching the alias fable AND any pinned concrete Fable release id, version-independent by design) AND fableConsent is not already true. Options: once (this spawn only) · always (persist fableConsent: true to the project config) · no (do not climb into fable — F7 caps the route at the rung below). One worker, one ask, no cost math. Never fires when routing lands on SELF or a non-fable tier.
• ASK 2 — FAN-OUT (more than one worker in one move — the ULTRACODE rung, or any parallel delegation; Step 2). Before spawning SEVERAL workers at once, state the plan (how many × tier × effort, capped at maxConcurrentSubagents) and get a yes. A single worker is NOT this ask.
• ASK 3 — MEMORY ANCHOR (at most once per session; Memory anchor section). Fires only when ALL hold: about to delegate context-DEPENDENT work · no anchor exists (contextFiles empty AND no platform CLAUDE.md/AGENTS.md the worker would inherit) · memoryOffer is auto · not yet offered this session. Options: Create / Choose / Skip (Skip persists memoryOffer: 'off' — never re-asks).
• OFFER — SELF ERROR-REPORT (an offer, not a consent gate): when CoalTipple itself misbehaves → STOP, summarize, OFFER to file an issue (P16; Self error-report section).
• NOT asks (add nothing to the count): a SINGLE non-fable worker spawn — standing consent is your mode config, and its transparency is the visible [model·effort] spawn label (Step 3.2), not a question · the qualityBar climb (automatic, bounded by maxTotalAttempts) · the self-update ask/reminder (the conductor's SessionStart channel, governed by updateMode — never fired by this file).

Absolute prohibitions — P1–P17 (the complete set)

A "never" inside a Step and not listed here is that step's sequencing mechanics, not an additional absolute.

• P1 — Sensitive work is NEVER delegated DOWN — whatever the grade, under every mode, and under a quota/limit-hit too (wait for reset / stay on a capable main / hand back — never fall cheaper; a vetted built-in beats hand-rolling). Sensitivity is a property of the PATH + the task's MEANING, never of the edit type — a "comments-only" / "just a typo" edit on an auth/crypto/payment path is still sensitive. The gate forbids DOWN only: SELF stays allowed (Step 2 HARD GATE).
• P2 — Never read "no keyword flag fired" as "not sensitive" — the flags are English-only; the gate fires on MEANING in ANY language, and YOU are the sensitive-gate authority on a non-English task (Step 2).
• P3 — A modelTiers pin never lowers the sensitive floor — a KNOWN-weaker alias pinned into a high tier does not satisfy the gate (a pin proves availability, never capability); only an UNKNOWN, post-cutoff pin is trusted there (Step 2).
• P4 — Never spawn a fable-family worker without consent (ASK 1); on "no", never climb into fable for this task, block the RESOLVED model name (not merely the literal fable), and never hardcode opus as the cap — the cap is the rung below fable, READ from the ranking (Step 2 · F7).
• P5 — Never route on a broken ranking, and never enumerate the live model list — the ranking is the alias floor + pins; genuinely unbuildable → routing OFF, do it yourself (Step 0 · F8).
• P6 — Workers are LEAVES: never spawn an open-ended worker — a bounded task-contract's done-criteria makes it RETURN, and a worker never spawns its own workers (Step 3).
• P7 — Never eyeball a verify — RUN the objective check, and never let a worker grade its own output (Step 3.4; binds a SELF result too — Step 2).
• P8 — Never let a cheap main QA an escalated expert's work — the strong worker owns the hard task AND its integration (Step 3.5).
• P9 — Never delegate the final user-facing deliverable (translation / summary / research prose) to a cheaper tier while preserveVoiceForUserFacing is true — bulk MECHANICAL work (renames, formatting, codegen) stays delegable (Step 2).
• P10 — Never escalate/climb on high-by-SIZE-alone mechanical bulk (size is the EFFORT knob, difficulty is the TIER knob) — EXCEPT a whole-repo audit / bug-scan / security-review, which is capability-driven breadth: never delegate THAT down-to-cheap, and if YOU are the floor tier never SELF it — escalate UP (Step 1).
• P11 — fast-mode is never a routing rung — attach it only on an explicit human latency request, and only if fastModeOnLatencyRequest (Step 2).
• P12 — Never fan out several workers near a budget/quota edge for marginal, context-light mechanical work the main can do inline — a worker that dies on the limit returns NOTHING (Step 2 budget gate · F9).
• P13 — With a stakes signal present or CoalBoard convening this turn, never escalate independently and never double-prompt — CB leads, CT becomes its tier-lever; no CoalBoard installed / not fired this turn → this rule is INERT (Step 2).
• P14 — On a platform whose spawn tool takes no worker-model parameter, never pretend to route (the platform gate above).
• P15 — A side-effecting step (bash mutation, external call, commit) is never delegated and never retried — retry = doing it twice (references/damage-control.md).
• P16 — A self error-report is OFFERED, never auto-submitted — and never includes unapproved code or paths (Self error-report section).
• P17 — Never clobber an existing memory-anchor file — load + append/crystallize only (references/damage-control.md, write-policy).

Fail routes — F1–F11 (the complete set)

A recovery move inside a Step or a reference and not listed here is that step's mechanics, not an additional route.

• F1 — a spawn ERRORS instantly (model unavailable / disabled / out of quota / gone) → add that model to blocked → resolveWorker(ranking, desiredTier, {blocked, floorTier}) → spawn the returned worker → repeat on each fresh error (Step 3.3).
• F2 — resolveWorker returns null (everything blocked down to the floor) → STOP: a SENSITIVE task hands back or waits for reset — never below its floor (P1); a non-sensitive task → do it yourself if you can clear the bar, else hand back honestly (Step 3.3 · damage-control).
• F3 — verify lands BELOW the bar but near it, attempts remain → climb ONE rung, cheapest lever first (EFFORT → VERSION → TIER; never re-try the same model) (Step 3.4; binds a SELF result too — Step 2).
• F4 — verify FAR below the bar, or out of maxTotalAttempts → jump straight to the top tier; at the top and still failing → hand back to the user (Step 3.4; binds a SELF result too — Step 2).
• F5 — the failure mode is un-verifiable (crypto timing, numerical precision, security — plausible-but-wrong PASSES your check) → JUMP to the reliable tier, never climb through plausible-wrong rungs (Step 2).
• F6 — a worker silent past subagentTimeoutSeconds → treat it as failed and re-route (damage-control).
• F7 — fable consent-declined ("no") → do NOT climb into fable: STAY at the current tier (a climb case), or land on the rung below fable (a grade-5 reasoning start — the same resolveWorker fall, blocking the RESOLVED name); the cap holds even if qualityBar is unmet. An UNAVAILABLE fable is not a decline — it just falls (F1), no ask (Step 2).
• F8 — ranking missing / corrupt / incomplete → rebuild on the spot per references/lock.md; genuinely unbuildable → routing OFF, work normally (Step 0).
• F9 — near a session/quota limit BEFORE spawning → collapse to inline-self (the proactive budget gate; resolveWorker is the reactive fall once a spawn is blocked) (Step 2).
• F10 — a delegation dies mid-run → the worker's proposal is in proposed/, finished subtasks in state.json → resume the remainder, never redo done work (damage-control).
• F11 — you KNOW from the start the task exceeds your ceiling → escalate immediately, don't burn an attempt (Step 3.4).

Files — the on-disk set (a near-twin pair, declared once)

A dot-FILE is CONFIG, a dot-DIR is STATE — the pair exists at both levels; do not read one as a typo of the other. This is the complete set a ROUTE touches. The conductor's own update-check stamp (~/.claude/coal/coaltipple/update-check) belongs to the SessionStart self-update channel, not to this contract.

• Config (read on every route): global ~/.claude/.coaltipple.json (unchanged) overlaid by the FIRST-FOUND project config — <gitroot>/.claude/coal/coaltipple.json → .agents/coal/coaltipple.json → .gemini/coal/coaltipple.json → LEGACY <gitroot>/.claude/.coaltipple.json — every bare ".coaltipple.json" in this file means this MERGED pair (merge rules in Always). <gitroot> = the nearest ancestor holding .git; no .git anywhere above → <gitroot> is just the starting directory itself (findGitRoot, config-load.mjs).
• State: ~/.claude/coal/coaltipple/ (global dir) holds ranking.json — READ at spawn-time only (a SELF route never reads it), WRITTEN only on a rare rebuild, atomically (F8) · <gitroot>/.claude/.coaltipple/ (project dir) holds proposed/ (the delegation sandbox workers write proposals into) + state.json (the subtask journal) — written only during a delegation (F10).
• Writes driven by asks: ASK 1's "always" persists fableConsent: true into the PROJECT config FILE (the resolved path per the Config bullet's read-order above — edit the key directly; scripts/ ships only with the repo source, not the installed plugin, so node scripts/configure.mjs --project --fableConsent true is a convenience for a source checkout, never the only path) · ASK 3 may create/choose a memory-anchor file (the user's own file — append, never clobber, P17) and persists contextFiles / memoryOffer.
• A SELF route writes NO CoalTipple artifact — the edit lands in the user's files directly; proposed/ is the DELEGATION recovery net, not self's (self recovery = your platform's normal undo / git).

Config — the knob set (defaults; full reference = README Configure / config-schema.mjs) — all 24 config keys in 23 rows (updateMode·updateCheckDays share one).

References — when each loads — these two are the complete reference set.

Grants & denials (CLASSIFY-BLOCK — declared)

A denial reaches the WORKER as a visible message and propagates NO further — not to the dispatcher, not as a catchable condition. Every row above states a branch or an explicit death; a step that dies says so in the output. Never report a denied step as done, skipped, or clean. No network row — the routing pipeline fetches nothing (the self-update check is the conductor's SessionStart channel, not this contract — Asks ledger, NOT-asks bullet). Grant denials are a SEPARATE mechanism from the F1–F11 fail-routes and P1–P17 prohibitions above (permission-level, not a routing decision) — both ledgers' counts are unchanged.

Step 0 — the Lock (a valid ranking gates any SPAWN)

Routing that will SPAWN needs a tier ranking — the ranking is READ at spawn-time (Step 3), never per prompt: a SELF route reads nothing, and an idle session pays nothing. It is dead simple — no introspection, no model-list enumeration, no refresh cadence:

• The ranking IS the alias floor + your pins. Tiers = the Claude aliases haiku < sonnet < opus < fable → low / mid / heavy / reasoning (fable = the top rung above opus — a real-money spawn, consent-gated before use; ASK 1, Step 2), overlaid with your modelTiers pins (merged config). The platform resolves each alias to its current best model AT SPAWN-TIME, so the floor never goes stale. When a route will spawn, read the GLOBAL shared ranking ~/.claude/coal/coaltipple/ranking.json (a cheap file read). You do NOT enumerate the live model list.
• Unknown model → heavy, never cheap. Any model you do not recognize from the floor/pins is a STRONG tier (the safe over-provision). Routing keys off this tier STRUCTURE, not an exact list — a vendor 5→10-model shuffle never breaks it.
• modelTiers pins are the one human override for a model released after your cutoff (you cannot see it): the user names it in the merged config and it wins front-of-tier.
• A failed spawn FALLS (resolveWorker, Step 3 · F1): availability is knowable ONLY at spawn-time, never from a catalog.
• If a ranking genuinely cannot be built → routing OFF: just work normally (F8). The skill never breaks — it routes, or routing is off.

→ Rebuild recipe (only when ranking.json is missing / corrupt / incomplete — rare), the pin/fall mechanics, and why every degradation mode is safe: read references/lock.md. A normal route just reads the file; it never rebuilds.

Step 1 — Grade the task (deterministic, not self-assessment)

Grade 1–5 by the rubric — size + sensitive-path + keyword, never "it feels easy" (a cheap model is overconfident):

Every signal is a FLOOR and the grade is the HIGHEST floor fired — deterministic, no tiebreak judgment (the rubric composes size + sensitive-path + keyword floors with max, as grade.mjs does): a 1-file edit (floor 2) whose prompt matches a grade-4 group grades 4 — the per-grade floor conditions are the table above, not restated here.

Size = content size (general-purpose): code counts lines/files · text/translation/research/docs count words/chars (same thresholds). Difficulty (keyword/sensitive) ALWAYS overrides size — a tiny-but-hard task (1 line of crypto, a short legal-contract translation) = high grade.

Keyword groups are config-tunable (keywords, merged config) — honor them. The FACTORY groups and their grade floors (the shipped values; a config overrides PER GROUP — it may add words or RAISE a built-in group's grade, never lower it below the factory floor, and never strip a built-in sensitive/preserveVoice flag): concurrency 5 · crypto 5 (sensitive) · security 4 (sensitive) · coding 4 (sensitive — its words are the migration / schema-change / payment / billing / rate-limit class, NOT "any code": a group fires on its WORDS/intent, never on the task's general domain, so an ordinary code edit matches nothing) · audit 4 · math 5 · knowledge 3 · domain 4 (sensitive) · creative 2 (preserveVoice); legacy hotKeywords merges as a grade-4 sensitive group. A prompt matching a group floors the grade to the group's number and inherits its flags; an omitted group keeps the built-in. The conductor's 0-token hint reflects only the built-ins, so YOUR read of the merged config is the authority. Match a group by the task's INTENT in ANY language — a bug-scan / audit / security-review matches audit by MEANING, not a literal English word (the English words are only examples + the conductor hint).

Read WHY the grade is high — it sets the DIRECTION (the grader's reasons tell you which):

• High by DIFFICULTY (sensitive path / hot keyword) → escalate-UP: you need a stronger tier for correctness.
• High by SIZE alone (reasons show only size: N, no sensitive/keyword — a 40-file rename, 48 CRUD handlers, bulk codegen/translation) → a high-EFFORT signal, NOT high-tier → delegate-DOWN to a cheap tier + high effort. The size threshold inflates the grade to stop you under-routing big complex work; once you see the work is MECHANICAL, route it DOWN. Never escalate-up / climb-the-staircase on bulk-mechanical work just because breadth bumped the grade (P10) — bulk is the EFFORT knob, difficulty is the TIER knob.
  • EXCEPTION — a whole-repo audit / bug-scan / security-review / code-review is high-by-DIFFICULTY, not size (P10).

If the conductor injected a hint, respect it.

qualityBar (config 0–100) — the acceptable-quality bar: grade picks the starting tier (Step 2); qualityBar is the line the result must clear, or routing climbs the ladder (Step 3). Default 60.

• Plain meaning: "accept work of quality ≥ qualityBar%". 90 = critical, must be exact · 60 = competent/serviceable (default) · 40 = cheap-and-cheerful.
• 0 = anything passes → stay at the starting tier, never climb. 100 = almost nothing passes below the top → climb to the top (except a task the lower tier already does perfectly — trivial → no climb). The extremes emerge from the climb mechanism; nothing is hardcoded.

Step 2 — Route (decide)

HARD GATE, checked before the grade or anything else counts — sensitive = NEVER delegate-DOWN, and this does NOT depend on your grade (the single most important safety rule): if the task touches anything sensitive/security — crypto, timing-attack, constant-time, auth, authorization, payment, secret, token, password, session, security (the grader + conductor flag these, plus any keywords group you marked sensitive) — then delegate-DOWN is FORBIDDEN, whatever number you graded it. Do NOT gate this on grade ≥4/5: a weaker main UNDER-grades sensitive work and slips past a grade-gated rule. The keyword is the gate, not your grade (P1). Sensitivity keys on the PATH + the task's MEANING, never on the edit type — a "comments-only" / "just a typo" edit on an auth/crypto/payment path is still sensitive; DOWN is forbidden, SELF is fine. For sensitive work: escalate UP, keep it on main, or use a vetted built-in (crypto.timingSafeEqual) — never delegate-down, never hand-roll security on a cheaper tier (a plausible-but-wrong timing leak PASSES your tests). "Keep it on main" presumes your OWN current tier already clears the sensitive SAFE FLOOR — heavy, fixed regardless of grade (the fable bullet below: "the cap holds at its safe floor tier heavy, never below"). Placing yourself on that floor is SELF-IDENTIFICATION, not the barred live-model enumeration (P5) — you already know your own name/family; match it against the SAME alias floor Step 0 defines (haiku < sonnet < opus < fable). If you genuinely cannot place yourself there, don't assume the floor clears — escalate instead, the same fail-toward-safe posture Step 0 uses for an unrecognized WORKER model. This is NOT the grade table's per-grade CEILING, a different and higher number at grade 5 (strongest/fable; the two only coincide at grade 4, where both happen to be heavy). SELF is the allowed DESTINATION once you clear the FLOOR — it never requires reaching the CEILING. If your own tier sits below heavy, staying SELF is not on the table: escalate (spawn UP) at least to heavy — same as "forces escalation off the current cheap tier" below (Step 2, tier-ceiling section), the SAME rule seen from underneath, not a second rule. Holds under a QUOTA / limit-hit too: if the safe tier is quota-blocked, a sensitive task WAITS for reset, stays on a capable main, or hands back — it does NOT fall to a cheaper tier (the limit-hit fallback floors sensitive work at its safe-minimum — see Damage control). A modelTiers pin cannot lower this floor (P3): a KNOWN-weaker alias (haiku/sonnet) pinned into a high tier never satisfies the gate — skip it and take the next known-strong model in that tier (resolveWorker enforces this on the fall); only an UNKNOWN, unseeable pin (a model released after your training cutoff) is trusted there. (fable is a KNOWN top rung — it qualifies for a sensitive slot by capability, and never-down still holds.)

Unknown path/meaning (you genuinely can't yet tell if it's sensitive) → ASSUME sensitive until confirmed otherwise: inspect the file's imports/callers (both directions) or ask the user; a HARD GATE with an unresolved default fails toward the safe side, never toward speed.

The keyword flags are ENGLISH-ONLY, so on a NON-ENGLISH task YOU are the sensitive-gate authority (P2): a Thai/CJK/Arabic/Cyrillic prompt — OR a Latin-script one (Spanish/French/German/Portuguese/Indonesian) — meaning "constant-time compare" / "auth bypass" matches NO English literal, so no flag fires and the grade reads trivial; a grade-gated reading would let the never-down backstop vanish. Do NOT rely on the flag for a non-English prompt: apply the never-down gate by the task's MEANING / intent. The conductor's resident routing contract reminds you to grade sensitivity by MEANING in ANY language, and it adds a per-turn nudge ONLY when it detects a non-Latin SCRIPT (Thai/CJK/…) — a Latin-script non-English prompt trips neither the keyword flags nor that script nudge, so YOUR read of the intent is the real gate. The gate fires on MEANING; the keyword is only its English fast-path.

mode (config, default auto) sets the DIRECTIONS you may route — honor it (the sensitive HARD GATE overrides it):

• auto (default) = route BOTH directions per grade.
• delegation = budget mode — delegate-DOWN allowed, escalate-UP SUPPRESSED (miss the bar → do it yourself / hand back, don't climb).
• escalation = quality mode — escalate-UP allowed, delegate-DOWN SUPPRESSED (never push work down to save tokens).
• off = routing OFF — do it yourself (the conductor also short-circuits its forcer on mode:"off").
• Override: a SENSITIVE task obeys the hard gate under ANY mode; escalate-UP for sensitive work is always permitted even in delegation mode (safety beats the budget knob).

Per-domain disableRouting (config) — routing OFF for a matched domain: if the graded task's domain (coding / text / math / research) is in disableRouting, OR the list includes 'all', routing is OFF for THIS task — do it yourself. Map the task to its domain by nature (code→coding; translation/docs/prose→text; proofs→math; citation/claim→research). (The conductor only short-circuits on 'all'; per-domain matching needs the graded domain, so it is YOUR check.)

Double-hook stand-down (CoalBoard may fire the same turn — P13): a stakes signal (security/crypto/migration/money) present, or CoalBoard already convening, means do NOT escalate independently — defer to CB: it leads, you become its tier-lever (its lenses run at the tier you'd have picked), one consent, never double-prompt. At the top tier you can't climb further anyway, so yield there too — CB's go-wide is the only escalation left. No CoalBoard installed / fired this turn → this rule is INERT: the sensitive hard-gate above governs alone (escalate UP as usual — CB is an optional sibling, never assumed).

Two knobs: TIER (coarse, burns Opus quota) × EFFORT (fine, cheap, low→max). Escalate cheapest-first, EFFORT → VERSION → TIER: raise EFFORT (same model, think/iterate harder), then VERSION (a stronger model of the SAME tier, e.g. Opus 4.6→4.8 — cheaper + closer than a tier jump), then TIER. Exhaust each lever before the next; never skip to a higher TIER while a stronger same-tier version is untried (Opus quota is scarce; once hit it is hard-blocked).

• The tier column = the CEILING, not the START — climb the staircase to it: escalate ONE rung at a time and verify each (Step 3); a lower rung often clears the bar (cheap tiers are more capable than they look). Reach the ceiling only when a lower rung FAILS verify; jump straight to the top on far-below / out-of-attempts (maxTotalAttempts) OR when the failure mode is subtle / un-verifiable — crypto (timing leaks), numerical precision, security — where a cheaper tier's plausible-but-wrong output would PASS your check (F5). Rule: climb when verify is your safety net; JUMP to the reliable tier when verify can't catch the failure. Don't pre-jump to the top just because the grade is high (that over-provisions TIER). (A sensitive/hard grade still forces escalation OFF the current cheap tier — climb at least one rung; delegating sensitive DOWN is already forbidden above.)
• Fable costs real money — ASK 1 gates it (Step 2). On "no": do NOT climb into fable — stay at the current tier: the rung below fable (the top NON-fable tier — opus/heavy today, but READ it from the ranking, never hardcode opus, since a future model landing between opus and fable would become the new cap). Declining the money CAPS the climb here even if qualityBar is unmet — run the worker at that tier and accept its result, don't climb further (F7). That rung is exactly where a blocked fable re-resolves (resolveWorker, the SAME fall an unavailable fable takes), so a grade-5 reasoning START with no rung-below drops there too: block the RESOLVED model (the exact name that tripped the ask — a pinned concrete Fable release id, NOT merely the literal fable, which would re-resolve + re-serve the pin) and keep declining while isFableModel stays true. Sensitive work keeps its never-down floor (the cap holds at its safe floor tier heavy, never below). A blocked/unavailable fable spawn falls the same way with no ask.
• EFFORT tracks OUTPUT-SIZE/iteration, NOT difficulty — the two knobs are independent: TIER is the correctness lever (difficulty → which model); EFFORT is the size lever (how much to produce/iterate). Reserve max for genuinely LARGE / deep work (a formal proof, a big refactor). Burning max on a tiny hard fn is the over-provisioning trap — the TIER already bought correctness; effort only sizes the work.
• Effort rubric (by OUTPUT SIZE): low = a lookup / ≤30 lines / 1-2 sentences · medium = a function + tests / a short proof / a paragraph · high = a multi-case proof / a multi-file change / a long document · max = a formal proof all-cases / a big refactor / an exhaustive sweep.
• Effort is the ALWAYS-ON lever (it pays even when TIER cannot move): at the top tier, or with only one tier available (cheaper tiers off, or a single-model user), you cannot escalate TIER but STILL optimize by scaling EFFORT per task (low for easy, high for hard). A self-executing top main IS still routing: it pins the tier and tunes effort. "Pins the tier" on SELF means a CEILING on any worker you might spawn from here, never an instruction to self-downgrade — you are already whatever model you are and cannot change that; the pin only bounds a future spawn.
• Delegate-down FLOOR (most important): spawning a worker has a high fixed overhead (~tens of thousands of tokens — measured). Delegate down only for a task big enough that doing it yourself would cost far more than the overhead (≥ delegateMinLines, default 120). Small-to-medium → do them yourself (offloading loses tokens). delegateMinLines is a CODE-line proxy — cheap-per-line work (translation, formatting, plain text) burns far fewer tokens/line, so it needs proportionally MORE than its raw line count before delegating pays. Judge real effort vs overhead, not the line count.
• Budget gate before you fan out (the proactive limit-hit guard) · spawning is the biggest spend you control: a worker pays off only when the task clears the floor AND there is clear BUDGET HEADROOM. Near a session/quota limit, or right after a limit-hit, the cheapest correct route is often NO worker: collapse to inline-self (F9). Above all, do NOT fan out SEVERAL workers at once for marginal-value, context-light, mechanical work (a multi-file grep/compare, a small audit, a consistency sweep) the main can do inline (P12) — N spawns × ~tens-of-thousands near a budget edge IS the limit-hit, and a worker that dies on the limit returns NOTHING (partial findings unrecoverable). resolveWorker is the REACTIVE fall once a spawn is blocked; THIS is the proactive gate before you spawn at all.
• If YOU are the floor tier (cheapest — e.g. main is Haiku): no tier exists below you, so delegate-DOWN is off the table. A big size-driven mechanical task (the one the grade table routes "delegate-down" for a higher main) has NO down-target → it collapses to SELF: do it yourself and CALL it self (a "delegate-down to myself" label is the self-contradiction that then slips the work UP to a costlier tier). Cheap/mechanical work you can do → do it yourself. Work beyond your competence (hard / sensitive / too-big-context) → escalate UP (don't keep a hard task on the floor just because "it isn't sensitive" or you hold the context). At the floor: self-for-cheap, up-for-hard.
• Context floor (the worker starts FRESH) — distinguish two kinds of "big context":
  • Accumulated CONVERSATION context (files read, decisions, the user's intent, the back-and-forth) — NON-transferable; a fresh worker can't see it. Work whose correctness depends on it → keep on main (compressing it into a contract is lossy + expensive). This is the real context-floor.
  • On-disk / re-readable INPUT (a codebase, a large document, logs) — a worker CAN read it itself from a path in the contract. A large on-disk input is NOT a reason to keep work on main — it's a reason to pick a worker with a big-enough context VARIANT (Step 0): choose TIER by difficulty, VARIANT by input size, independently. (Exception: if you ALREADY hold the input in a large-context main, keeping it there is free.)
• ULTRACODE (max effort + multi-agent fan-out) = the top rung, for genuinely broad + independent work only; workers run a cheap tier, you orchestrate (cap concurrent at maxConcurrentSubagents, default 4 — they share one rate limit). Spawning more than one worker in one move is ASK 2 — state the plan (how many × tier × effort) and get a yes first. fast-mode is not a routing choice (P11) — attach it only on an explicit human latency request, and only if fastModeOnLatencyRequest (default true); never as a routing rung.
• Voice: when preserveVoiceForUserFacing (default true), never delegate the final user-facing deliverable to a cheaper model (P9) — INCLUDING a translation, summary, or research write-up (the prose IS the deliverable), even when bulky (reviewing it to protect voice + terminology costs about as much as redoing it). Bulk MECHANICAL work (renames, formatting, codegen) is not "deliverable prose" and stays delegate-able.
• A SELF result faces the same bar (P7 binds you too), UNCONDITIONALLY — qaOnMerge does not gate it (qaOnMerge only tunes a DELEGATED worker's merge rigor, per its own config help text; off skips a worker's merge-verify but never skips your own): verify your own output with the same domain-appropriate check as a worker's (Step 3.4), sized to the change — a code edit runs the build/tests, a text/comment edit re-reads the diff for completeness + correctness; eyeballing your own work is still not verifying. Below qualityBar → the staircase applies to YOU: raise effort, then escalate (F3). SELF work edits the user's files in place — no .claude/.coaltipple/proposed/ sandbox (Files ledger).

Step 3 — If you delegate

1. Task contract (required when requireTaskContract, default true): give the worker goal + constraints + interface + done-criteria. A thin brief makes a cheap worker build the wrong thing with confidence. Keep it compact.
2. Spawn at the chosen tier/effort — lead the spawn's description/label with the chosen model + effort so the human sees what is running (e.g. [haiku·low] scaffold 48 handlers, [opus·max] formal proof, [sonnet·high] refactor auth; CC renders the description as the task chip). Require a compact diff/summary, not whole files. The worker MUST be BOUNDED — never spawn an open-ended worker that can loop (P6): the done-criteria (item 1) makes it terminate (a "keep improving" brief runs forever). subagentTimeoutSeconds (default 150) catches a STALL (F6); the done-criteria prevents the LOOP.
3. Spawn-fail-fall — the never-fail availability loop (drives resolveWorker; F1–F2): a spawn can ERROR instantly (0-token) because the model

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