modelchk

Size the run before you spend it: how strong a model, and how hard it should think.

modelchk is read-only and advisory. From one assessment it sizes the two dials that set a model's per-run cognitive spend — capability tier and reasoning effort. It does not choose, route, switch, pin, spawn, set, or require any concrete model or level.

Goal

From a single risk-and-complexity read, recommend two coordinates.

Capability tier — the cheapest sufficient class of mind:

• fast for local, mechanical, reversible work with cheap, complete verification.
• standard for ordinary repo-grounded reasoning, multi-step drafting, normal coding, and conventional documentation or skill work.
• frontier for architecture, high ambiguity, safety/security/privacy/data-loss risk, release-critical review, cross-domain scope, or work where one wrong assumption wastes a large run.

Reasoning effort — how hard that mind should deliberate. modelchk recommends the effort intent; resolving it to the active model's actual level — like choosing the model itself — is the executor's step, not this skill's. From least to most deliberation:

• glance — minimal deliberation; take the direct path. (Resolves to the model's floor.)
• measured — ordinary, everyday deliberation. (The model's default, or the middle of its ladder when no default is named.)
• thorough — deliberate extra: work the alternatives and check the assumptions. (Above the everyday setting, short of the top.)
• exhaustive — maximal deliberation; exhaust the search and re-check the work. (The model's ceiling.)

The two axes are orthogonal — a bounded-but-fiddly task can be fast + thorough, a quick expert call frontier + glance — yet in most work they move together, parting only when a cheap task needs hard thinking or a strong model needs only a quick call. Effort buys deliberation, never capability, and more of it is not more correct.

Workflow

1. Frame the exact work unit being sized: task, artifact, review, rerun, or plan.
2. Score risk and complexity once — this single read feeds both coordinates:
   • file, module, or ownership boundary crossing;
   • reversibility and blast radius;
   • safety, security, privacy, publishing, or data-loss risk;
   • novelty, ambiguity, and long-context synthesis load;
   • need for external research, adversarial review, or careful release sequencing;
   • cost of a wrong answer.
3. Read off the capability tier: the cheapest class whose ceiling covers the work's judgment and risk.
4. Read off the reasoning effort: default it to track the tier (fast→glance, standard→measured, frontier→thorough, reserving exhaustive for the hardest, highest-stakes work), then deviate where deliberation-hunger and capability-need part — raise it for ambiguity, long multi-step reasoning, or adversarial self-check on an otherwise cheap task; lower it for a bounded task under a strong model.
5. Report both coordinates, one shared rationale, move up if... and move down if... triggers for each dial, and the proof surface — the verification the work still needs regardless of tier or effort.
6. Stop.

Rules

• Size the run's cognitive spend, nothing else. The two dials are which mind (capability tier) and how hard it thinks (reasoning effort). Orchestration dials — context budget, fan-out width, tool-permission scope — are a different reflex and stay out; sharing this one risk read does not pull them in.
• Neutral language only: tier is fast/standard/frontier; effort is glance/measured/thorough/exhaustive, each an intent defined by a position on the active model's ladder — floor, default, above-default, ceiling — never a named vendor level.
• When resolved, effort binds to positions, not levels: a model lacking an interior level collapses the rung to the nearest it offers, so the intent always maps to a real setting and never resolves out of range.
• The default is the cheapest sufficient tier and the effort that meets the work, not the strongest of either.
• Effort is deliberation budget, not capability and not answer length. Never raise it to buy capability — that is the tier's job.
• No routing authority. This skill recommends two coordinates; the user, harness, or executor decides what runs and sets the actual level.
• Do not name concrete model products, vendors, or versions in durable mechanism text.
• Risk beats size: a one-file high-risk change can want frontier; a broad mechanical rename can stay fast + thorough when verification is complete.
• Verification is separate. A stronger tier or a higher effort never replaces tests, review, command output, manual QA, or other proof surface.
• Do not execute the task being sized, change configuration, call another model, or alter provider settings.
• Do not override an explicit user tier or effort choice. Report the mismatch if one is visible.

Output

recommended_tier: fast|standard|frontier
recommended_effort: glance|measured|thorough|exhaustive
rationale: <one sentence, covering both dials>
move_up_if: <signals that would justify a stronger tier or higher effort>
move_down_if: <signals that would justify a cheaper tier or lower effort>
proof_surface: <verification still required, independent of tier and effort>

Verification

Before finishing, confirm the report:

• names exactly one tier (fast/standard/frontier) and one effort (glance/measured/thorough/exhaustive);
• states the cheapest sufficient tier and the effort that meets the work, not the strongest of either;
• gives move-up and move-down triggers covering both dials;
• names the proof surface;
• makes no routing, switching, provider, vendor, product, version, or concrete-level claim, and names no orchestration dial beyond the two cognitive-spend ones.