research-router

name	research-router
description	Cost-routing helper. Reads RESEARCH_MODEL from config and decides whether a bulk-research call should run on Claude or be delegated to a cheaper model (DeepSeek Pro/Flash via OpenRouter). Reserves Claude for ground-truth, meeting-prep, draft-outreach, recommendation engine. Skills that produce many cheap research artifacts (discovery, ecosystem, financials briefs) call this first.
disable-model-invocation	false
allowed-tools	Read, Bash(test *)

Research Router

Most career-os work is reasoning over user-specific context — Claude is right. But bulk web-shaped research (domain enumeration, ecosystem mapping, public-financials briefs) is cost-dominated. This skill is the routing decision: should this call use Claude, or hand off to a cheaper model.

The skill itself doesn't call any model — it returns a routing decision the caller acts on.

Inputs

$ARGUMENTS:

• Required: --task=<task-name> — the calling skill or task type (e.g. discover-by-domain, brief-company-financials, meeting-prep).
• Optional: --override=<model> — force a specific routing target.

Procedure

1. Load config

Read config.yaml (or workspace config). Keys:

• RESEARCH_MODEL — claude (default) | deepseek-pro | deepseek-flash | auto.
• OPENROUTER_MCP — name of installed OpenRouter MCP, if any.

If config missing, default to claude and note "no router configured."

2. Classify task

Two sets:

Always Claude (high-context, user-specific reasoning):

• ground-truth, meeting-prep, draft-outreach, suggest-companies, route-capture, weekly-plan, weekly-log, self-healing-context.

Routable (bulk, web-shaped, structurally similar across runs):

• discover-by-domain, discover-by-geography, discover-remote-friendly, companies-like-x, chunked-discovery.
• brief-company-financials, brief-recruitment-profile, brief-glassdoor-signal.
• find-conferences, find-communities, find-jobs-boards, find-hackathons, map-investors.
• salary-research, branding-assessment.

3. Decide

RESEARCH_MODEL	Always-Claude task	Routable task
claude	claude	claude
deepseek-pro	claude	deepseek-pro
deepseek-flash	claude	deepseek-flash
auto	claude	deepseek-flash if OPENROUTER_MCP set, else claude

--override wins over the table.

4. Return routing decision

Print one line:

route: <claude|deepseek-pro|deepseek-flash> via <claude|openrouter:<mcp>>
reason: task=<task> RESEARCH_MODEL=<value>

Caller reads stdout and dispatches accordingly.

Guardrails

• Never silently route an "Always Claude" task — those are quality-load-bearing.
• If RESEARCH_MODEL=deepseek-* but OPENROUTER_MCP not configured, downgrade to claude and warn.
• Routing is per-call; not sticky across a session.

Failure modes

• Config unreadable → default to claude.
• Unknown task name → return route: claude with reason: unknown task, defaulting to claude.