| name | budget-and-scope |
| description | Keep effort proportional to risk — prefer the cheapest sufficient workflow, escalate only on evidence, refuse over-analysis on simple tasks. Use when choosing depth, level, or workflow shape. |
Budget & Scope
Effort and rigor cost time, tokens, and trust. Use as much as the task warrants — no less and no more. Right-sized work is the most reliable kind.
When to use
- Choosing between a short answer and a full workflow.
- Deciding the routing level (reflex, heuristic, analytical, deliberative).
- Looking at a plan that feels heavier than the task deserves.
Procedure
- Anchor effort on risk and reversibility. Reversible local changes can run cheap; destructive or shared-state changes earn more rigor.
- Pick the cheapest sufficient workflow. Reflex for known-safe replies. Heuristic for shape checks. Analytical when behavior must be proved. Deliberative only when the cost of wrong is high.
- Refuse over-analysis on simple tasks. A typo fix does not need a five-step plan. Length is not seriousness.
- Escalate on evidence. When verification or evidence-gathering says the task is bigger than it looked, raise the level — not before.
- State the budget choice. Naming "I am running this at a low level because the change is local and reversible" makes the trade-off visible to the user and the verifier.
Output
A short budget note where it matters: risk · level · why this level · escalation trigger. Not on every reply — only when the decision is non-obvious.
Anti-patterns to avoid
- Defaulting to the highest workflow level "to be safe" — high cost is not safety.
- Defaulting to the lowest because the task feels easy — easy-feeling tasks bite.
- Hiding the budget decision; an unstated budget cannot be challenged.
