What are the triggers to upgrade from Sonnet to Opus?

You should upgrade to Opus if Sonnet fails a subtask twice, if the task is security-critical, or when you are designing entirely new systems versus implementing known patterns.

Is Claude Haiku sufficient for coding?

Haiku is excellent for mechanical tasks like bulk file renaming, dependency audits, and simple factual Q&A, but Sonnet is usually preferred for actual feature generation.

When should I use Claude Opus in Claude Code?

Use Opus for high-complexity reasoning tasks such as architecture design, security reviews, and hard root-cause debugging where the cost of an error is high.

How does model cascading reduce costs?

Model cascading uses expensive models (Opus) for planning and final review gates while delegating bulk implementation and research to cheaper models (Sonnet or Haiku).

Claude Model Routing & Cost Optimizer

Name: Claude Model Routing & Cost Optimizer
Author: markus41

bymarkus41

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Productivity & Workflow

Optimizes Claude Code session costs and performance by intelligently selecting the most appropriate model for specific development tasks.

This skill provides a comprehensive framework for managing Claude Code sessions by matching task complexity with the optimal model—Opus, Sonnet, or Haiku. It features a detailed decision matrix for architecture, debugging, and routine tasks, alongside budget planning tools and cascading strategies to maximize reasoning capability while minimizing token expenditure. By implementing smart upgrade and downgrade triggers and leveraging specialized plan modes, it ensures high-stakes work gets the intelligence it needs without overpaying for mechanical or repetitive coding tasks.

Key Features

0110 GitHub stars

02Cost-per-turn budget estimation and projection

03Intelligent upgrade/downgrade logic triggers

04Multi-model cascading for phased development

05Optimized /plan mode for architectural scoping

06Task-based model decision matrix

Use Cases

01Automating bulk file reformatting using the cost-effective Haiku model.

02Deciding when to switch from Sonnet to Opus for deep root-cause debugging.

03Estimating the total budget for a complex multi-file feature implementation.

What are Skills?·How to Install

Install with 🐟 Skill.Fish

npx skillfish add markus41/claude model-routing

For use in Claude.ai and ChatGPT