model-selection

A guide to choosing an AI model for different coding tasks. It points to a live list based on current Kilo Code usage because models, prices, and availability change over time.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to compare current model choices, select a model in VS Code, and switch models or supported variants during a session.
Why use it?
It avoids relying on a fixed recommendation that may become outdated as models and their costs change.

Agent

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add agents/kilo-org/kilocode/model-selection
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Kilo-Org/kilocode
Per session 10 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 2,394 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00010 $0.02394
Opus 5 $0.00005 $0.01197
Sonnet 5 $0.00002 $0.00479
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00239

Measured yesterday against content hash 7efd9b52ce10, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

model-selection scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

packages/kilo-docs/pages/code-with-ai/agents/model-selection.md · 192 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 192 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Model Selection Guide

Here's the honest truth about AI model recommendations: by the time I write them down, they're probably already outdated. New models drop every few weeks, existing ones get updated, prices shift, and yesterday's champion becomes today's budget option.

Instead of maintaining a static list that's perpetually behind, we built something better — a real-time leaderboard showing which models Kilo Code users are actually having success with right now.

Check the Live Models List

👉 See what's working today at kilo.ai/models

This isn't benchmarks from some lab. It's real usage data from developers like you, updated continuously. You'll see which models people are choosing for different tasks, what's delivering results, and how the landscape is shifting in real-time.

General Guidance

While the specifics change constantly, some principles stay consistent:

How to Select and Switch Models

{% tabs %} {% tab label="VSCode" %}

  • Use the model selector in the chat prompt area to pick a model for the current session. You can also type /models to open the model picker.
  • When the selected model supports variants, type /variant to open the reasoning effort selector.
  • Press Shift+Tab in the prompt input to cycle to the next reasoning effort variant, wrapping after the last one. This works in the sidebar chat, the Agent Manager prompt, and the New Worktree dialog, and the variant selector tooltip shows the shortcut on hover. To keep Shift+Tab for keyboard focus navigation instead, disable the kilo-code.new.chat.shiftTabCyclesVariant setting (also available under Settings → Display).
  • Set per-agent defaults and a global default in the Settings panel (Models tab), or directly in the kilo.jsonc config file.
  • Model precedence: Session override → Last picked per agent → Per-agent config → Global config → Auto Free (note: Auto Free may route to providers that log prompts — see the Auto Model page for details).
  • The model selector remembers the last model you picked for each agent, so switching agents restores your previous choice. A manual pick always beats config settings.

Read the full file on GitHub · 192 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 192 lines · 10 tokens per session scan A 7efd9b52ce10

Subscribe to this mod's changes

model-selection is an agent published in the GitHub repository Kilo-Org/kilocode (27,081 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 10 tokens to every session and 2,394 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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