| name | founder-effort |
| description | Use when declaring or checking the token budget / model tier for this session. Triggers on: "set effort", "how much budget do we have", "low on tokens", "use opus", "use sonnet", "constrained this week", or any explicit model-tier selection. Can also be called mid-session to downgrade tier when tokens run low. |
Founder Effort
A single-question calibrator that sets the model routing tier for the session. Every downstream
skill that routes to Opus vs. Sonnet vs. an external executor reads this decision. Set it once; change it if
the situation changes mid-session.
Not to be confused with Claude Code's built-in /effort command, which sets the current model's
reasoning effort (thinking depth) and never changes which model runs. This skill was renamed
from effort to founder-effort to avoid that collision.
Announce at start: "Using founder-effort to set the token budget tier."
The question
Run AskUserQuestion with exactly one question:
header: "Token budget"
question: "What's the effort tier for this session?"
options:
- label: "Ample — Opus 4.8 (Recommended for new work)"
description: "Full capability throughout. Best for planning, architectural decisions, high-stakes reviews."
- label: "Moderate — Sonnet 4.6"
description: "Strong capability, lower cost. Right for most feature work, research, and iteration."
- label: "Constrained — Sonnet + external executor"
description: "Sonnet for planning and short tasks; hand heavy implementation off as a written plan file to an external executor (a cheaper Claude session, Haiku 4.5, or a third-party plan-runner) to preserve remaining tokens."
- label: "Sprint end — plans only"
description: "Tokens nearly exhausted. Fable writes plans only; all implementation goes to an external executor. No generation here."
After the answer
Announce the routing decision in one line:
| Tier | Announce |
|---|
| Ample | "Effort: Ample. Routing planning and implementation to Opus 4.8." |
| Moderate | "Effort: Moderate. Planning → Opus 4.8, implementation → Sonnet 4.6." |
| Constrained | "Effort: Constrained. All work → Sonnet 4.6; heavy lifts → an external executor (plan file handoff)." |
| Sprint end | "Effort: Sprint end. Plans only. Implementation → external executor (hand it the plan file)." |
Save to ~/.claude/session-context.md (append or overwrite the effort_tier line).
Mid-session downgrade
If you observe token pressure mid-session (context approaching limits, user mentions it), call
/founder-effort again and re-announce. Downstream skills will adjust routing automatically.
Related API primitives (don't confuse them with this skill)
This skill routes which model handles each role for the session. The Claude API has two
per-request controls with similar names:
| Primitive | What it controls |
|---|
output_config.effort (low/medium/high/xhigh/max) | Thinking depth and token spend within one request |
Task Budgets (output_config.task_budget, beta task-budgets-2026-03-13, min 20,000 tokens) | A model-visible token countdown for a whole agentic loop — the model self-moderates |
Useful, officially documented fact for the Constrained tier: on Fable 5, lower effort settings
still perform very well — often exceeding the xhigh/max performance of previous models — so
dialing effort down is a legitimate budget lever before downgrading models.
Model reference
| Model | Best for | Token cost |
|---|
| Opus 4.8 | Complex reasoning, planning, architectural review | High |
| Sonnet 4.6 | Feature implementation, iteration, most tasks | Medium |
| External executor (any plan-runner) | Executing a written plan file with minimal Claude token spend | Minimal |
See: Claude models overview ·
Interactive mode / AskUserQuestion
