[matltc]

How does one configure Claude code to delegate to cheaper models?

I have a number of agents in ~/.claude/agents/. Currently have most set to `model: sonnet` but some are on haiku.

The agents are given very specific instructions and names that define what they do, like `feature-implementation-planner` and `feature-implementer`. My (naive) approach is to use higher-cost models to plan and ideally hand off to a sub-agent that uses a lower-cost model to implement, then use a higher-cost to code review.

I am either not noticing the handoffs, or they are not happening unless specifically instructed. I even have a `claude-help` agent, and I asked it how to pipe/delegate tasks to subagents as you're describing, and it answered that it ought to detect it automatically. I tested it and asked it to report if any such handoffs were detected and made, and it failed on both counts, even having that initial question in its context!

[brianwawok]

I only get Claude to launch agents when I specifically tell it to for a given task. And it only really works if you can actually parallelize the task,