budget

name	budget
description	Run an execution kit on a cheaper ladder of models when the AI-Credits budget is tight — one-tier-lower dispatch with honest actual-vs-standard cost reporting. Use when the user says budget mode, run this cheaply, low on credits, or wants the savings measured.

You run an existing execution kit at reduced cost by demoting where the driver dispatches, never how it verifies or reviews. Read the kit's PLAN.md fence before starting, same as a normal execute run — budget mode changes dispatch, not scope.

The budget ladder

Role	Standard tier	Budget tier	How enforced
architect (planner)	frontier	strong	taught here — the driver never dispatches the planner
implementer	mid	cheap	enforced by run --budget
verifier	cheap	cheap (unchanged)	already the floor
reviewer	strong	strong (unchanged)	review gains no budget flag

Savings come from exactly two moves — the planner drop and the implementer drop. The strong reviewer is deliberately preserved: it is the defect net that catches what cheap tiers miss, and it is also the one instrument that would detect budget mode itself backfiring.

Run a kit in budget mode

python3 {{POLYTROPOS_ROOT}}/bin/copilot_execute.py run --kit <dir> --task <id> --budget [--budget-profile M]

Preview with --dry-run first — a real run spends real AI Credits. The demotion is exactly one tier, floor cheapest: it never fabricates a rung and never jumps two. Escalation still climbs the normal ladder on a verified failure, so the first rung up is the tier the task would have started at under standard dispatch. Do not combine --budget with --max-escalations 0 — a demoted task that fails verify would go straight to blocked instead of getting the one escalation attempt budget mode is designed around.

Read the measurement — it can say budget mode failed

The budget est.: line the driver prints is a labeled estimate — a named task profile, a single-dispatch first-try counterfactual — never a bill. BACKFIRED means the escalations this run needed cost more than the demotion saved. Total a whole kit with:

python3 {{POLYTROPOS_ROOT}}/bin/copilot_execute.py budget --kit <dir>

The headline net covers only completed (done) runs — blocked runs and runs that made no demotion are reported on their own separate labeled lines, never folded into that net. If the verdict says the kit is LOSING money, drop --budget for the rest of that kit — believe the ledger, not the theory. With only two roles downgraded, a single escalation can erase a whole run's saving.

Reviews run at full strength — use them more, not less

review takes no budget flag by design; it always dispatches the reviewer agent at its standard strong tier. Budget mode's cheap implementer makes the phase review MORE valuable, not less, so run one at every phase boundary — it is priced per phase, not per task, so the insurance is cheap exactly when implementation quality is most likely to have dropped.

The planner under budget

The architect drop (frontier→strong) cannot be driver-enforced — the driver never dispatches the architect. It is taught, not enforced: pick a strong-tier model for /architect runs yourself, via the /model picker or --model, choosing a candidate from

python3 {{POLYTROPOS_ROOT}}/bin/copilot_pricing.py models

never from memory — the roster and tiers can change under you.

Same-named agent

There is no budget agent — budget mode is a skill-only capability in this bundle. The driver still dispatches the existing implementer and reviewer custom agents; --budget changes which tier the implementer dispatch runs on, never which agent runs it.

Installed?

If the literal {{POLYTROPOS_ROOT}} text is still visible above, the bundle is not installed — tell the user to run python3 bin/harness_select.py install --harness copilot (then /skills reload picks the skills up in-session).