model-tiers

model-tiers is a skill for Claude Code from Xakki/ai-agents-skills. It costs 58 tokens per session (643 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A skill for choosing between cheap, standard, and judgment model tiers for different coding tasks. AIMODEL maps those tiers to the model versions used in the current session.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to select models for mechanical edits, normal product logic, code review, architecture, debugging, or research.
Why use it?
It avoids choosing a model version by hand for every task and helps match routine work with simpler models while reserving higher-level reasoning for difficult work.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: SessionStart hook event. Also seen: reads .claude/ paths; mentions subagents; mentions Codex.

Part of the ai-agents-skills plugin — 23 skills, 3 agents, 6 hooks shipped together

Good fit Use it to select models for mechanical edits, normal product logic, code review, architecture, debugging, or research.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/xakki/ai-agents-skills/model-tiers
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.

Any agent
npx skills add Xakki/ai-agents-skills --skill model-tiers
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Xakki/ai-agents-skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install ai-agents-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 23 skills, 3 agents, 6 hooks.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for model-tiers

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/xakki/ai-agents-skills/model-tiers/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/xakki/ai-agents-skills/model-tiers)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/xakki/ai-agents-skills/model-tiers"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/xakki/ai-agents-skills/model-tiers/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for model-tiers

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/xakki/ai-agents-skills/model-tiers"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/xakki/ai-agents-skills/model-tiers.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 58 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 643 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 5.1 $0.00058 $0.00643
Opus 5 $0.00029 $0.00321
Sonnet 5 $0.00012 $0.00129
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00064

Measured 11d ago against content hash a031144e5bf9, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

model-tiers 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 11d ago.

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.

skills/model-tiers/SKILL.md · 73 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 73 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

model-tiers — cheap / standard / judgment

Three cognitive tiers — skills and delegation rules name tiers only, never vendor model slugs. Resolved slugs for this session are injected at SessionStart (hooks/model-tiers-inject.sh) and appear in context as cheap, standard, judgment.

Tiers

Tier Role Default slug
cheap Mechanical, spec-complete, single-pass work (grep, rename, format, inventory) haiku
standard Routine product logic, known patterns, doc/skill edits, code review sonnet
judgment Architecture, tricky debug, cross-file synthesis, multi-source research opus

When torn between two tiers, pick the cheaper one; escalate on ambiguity. Floor = standard for anything touching product logic.

Env keys

Key Tier
AI_MODEL_CHEAP cheap
AI_MODEL_STANDARD standard
AI_MODEL_JUDGMENT judgment

Precedence

  1. Runtime environmentAI_MODEL_* values inherited when the agent starts. Claude, Codex, and Cursor can set these through their settings.json env block. For Prime Agent, export them in the shell/service that starts prime-agent; use exact selectors accepted by prime-agent model list.
  2. Plugin defaultsskills/model-tiers/defaults.env (shipped with the plugin).

Unset override keys fall back to defaults. Never invent a model — always use the resolved slug from the map above or from SessionStart injection.

SessionStart inject

Every session receives a tiny block:

## Model tiers (resolved for this session)
cheap = <slug>
standard = <slug>
judgment = <slug>

Pass these slugs as model: on every Agent / Task call. Omitting model: inherits the caller's tier (expensive default).

Configure overrides

Set AI_MODEL_* in the active runtime's environment. Claude, Codex, and Cursor can use their settings.json env block; for Prime Agent, export the values before startup. Long jq examples → reference.md.

Read the full file on GitHub · 73 lines

Files

What ships with it

3 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 11d ago First seen · 73 lines · 58 tokens per session scan A a031144e5bf9

Subscribe to this mod's changes

model-tiers is a skill published in the GitHub repository Xakki/ai-agents-skills (6 stars, last pushed 20d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 58 tokens to every session and 643 once invoked, about $0.0003 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 2026-08-31.

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