/route — Token-Saving Model Router

Route each task to the cheapest model that can actually do it, instead of burning frontier tokens on work a small/local/subscription model handles fine. Two mechanisms:

• Delegate (works live, no restart): keep Claude as the brain, shell out a sub-task to a cheaper CLI or local model, bring the result back.
• Base-switch (whole session, needs restart): repoint Claude Code's base model to a cheaper provider for an entire session — same mechanism as /free-mode.

When to use

• /route or "route this", "do this on the cheapest model", "run it locally", "save tokens / save $", "which model for X?"
• Before a batch / mechanical job (bulk refactors, find-replace-at-scale, boilerplate, test generation)
• Before a huge-context read (summarize a giant file / repo) that doesn't need deep reasoning
• When the work is private and shouldn't leave the machine

Don't route a single genuinely-hard reasoning task — just run it on the frontier model. Routing has overhead; only pay it when the task is cheap-able.

Step 1 — Detect what's available

Run this first and read the result (caches a profile to ~/.claude/skills/route/providers.json):

ROUTE_DIR=~/.claude/skills/route
echo "=== Agent CLIs ==="
for c in ollama codex gemini grok hermes claude; do
  p=$(command -v "$c" 2>/dev/null) && echo "  $c: $p" || echo "  $c: MISSING"
done
echo "=== Local Ollama models ==="
ollama list 2>/dev/null | tail -n +2 | awk 'NF{print "  "$1}' || echo "  (ollama not running)"
[ -z "$(ollama list 2>/dev/null | tail -n +2)" ] && echo "  ⚠ NO MODELS PULLED — run: ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:7b"
echo "=== Provider keys ==="
for k in OPENAI_API_KEY OPENROUTER_API_KEY XAI_API_KEY GEMINI_API_KEY ANTHROPIC_API_KEY; do
  [ -n "$(printenv $k)" ] && echo "  $k: set" || echo "  $k: —"
done
[ -f ~/.config/jack-keys.env ] && echo "  (also source ~/.config/jack-keys.env for stored keys)"

Step 2 — First run: confirm the stack

If providers.json is missing (or the user says "re-detect" / "I added a provider"), ask which of these they have and want to use, then save the answers:

1. ChatGPT / OpenAI — Codex CLI (codex) or OPENAIAPIKEY
2. Google Gemini — gemini CLI or GEMINIAPIKEY
3. Grok / xAI — XAIAPIKEY
4. OpenRouter — OPENROUTERAPIKEY (gives free + cheap models; see /free-mode)
5. Hermes (Nous) — hermes CLI
6. Local (Ollama) — and which models are pulled

Persist to ~/.claude/skills/route/providers.json so later runs skip the questions.

The routing table

Step 3 — Route the task (delegation, works live)

Pick the target, then shell out via Bash and bring the output back for Claude to review/assemble:

# Local / private / bulk  (free, offline)
ollama run qwen2.5-coder:7b "<prompt>"

# Huge-context read or summary  (cheap, big window)
gemini -p "<prompt>"                      # or:  cat bigfile | gemini -p "summarize"

# Agentic code grunt work  (must be inside a git repo)
codex exec --full-auto "<prompt>"

# Autonomous / multi-tool run
hermes -z "<prompt>"

Then Claude reviews/finishes the cheap model's output. The frontier model stays the orchestrator; it just stops doing the cheap parts itself.

Whole-session cheap mode (base-switch, needs restart)

When the entire session is routine work, switch the base model for the whole session instead of delegating task-by-task — identical mechanism to /free-mode: set ANTHROPICBASEURL + ANTHROPIC_MODEL in ~/.claude/settings.json to a cheaper provider, then restart Claude Code. Use /free-mode on for the OpenRouter/Qwen path. Always confirm with the user before a base-switch — it forces a restart.

Cost ladder (try cheapest first, escalate only on failure)

1. Local Ollama — $0, private, offline
2. A subscription you already pay for (ChatGPT via Codex, Gemini) — sunk cost, no marginal tokens
3. OpenRouter free / cheap models
4. Frontier (Claude / GPT / Grok premium) — reserve for the hard ~20%

Principles

• Default to the cheapest plausible model; escalate only when it fails or the output is weak.
• Private/sensitive → local only. Never route confidential code or client data off-machine.
• The frontier model is the brain; cheap models are the hands.
• One model is never strictly best — route by the specific task in front of you.
• Confirm before any base-switch (restart required).

Setup gaps (the detector flags these)

• No Ollama models → ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:7b (great small coder; use :32b if you have ~24GB+ RAM). This is the #1 thing to fix — without it there's no local tier.
• No OpenRouter key → run /free-mode to get the free Qwen3-Coder path.
• No Grok → add XAIAPIKEY (or wire Grok via OpenRouter).