Model Escalation

Escalation Tiers

Haiku (junior-coder, docs, explainer, optimizer)
  ↓ on failure
Sonnet (coder, tech-lead, reviewer, qa, architect, explorer)
  ↓ on failure
Opus (senior-coder, planner, red-teamer)

Never Skip Tiers

• ALWAYS try the next tier first before jumping to Opus
• Haiku → Sonnet → Opus (never Haiku → Opus directly)
• Each tier gets ONE attempt before escalation
• Exception: if the task is known to require Opus (architecture, cross-cutting), start there

Escalation Signals

Escalate to the next tier when:

• Test failures: Agent's code fails tests and agent can't fix in one retry
• Clippy warnings: Agent introduces warnings it can't resolve
• Wrong output schema: Agent produces output that doesn't match expected format
• Tech-lead BLOCKED twice: Tech-lead rejects the same agent's work twice on the same task
• Task timeout: Agent exceeds expected completion time by 2x
• Repeated hook blocks: Agent triggers enforcement hooks 3+ times on the same operation

Do NOT Escalate When

• Task is simply large (break it down instead)
• Agent needs more context (add skills/instructions instead)
• Infrastructure error (retry, don't escalate)
• First-time failure on a reasonable task (retry once at same tier)

Escalation Protocol

1. Diagnose the failure (see capability-diagnostic skill)
2. Determine if it's a model capability issue (Step 3 of diagnostic)
3. If yes: re-assign task to next tier agent with original prompt + "Previous attempt failed because: [reason]"
4. If no: fix the actual issue (context, tools, spec) and retry at same tier

Tracking

• Log escalations to claude-mem: "Escalated [task type] from [tier] to [tier] because [reason]"
• After 3+ escalations of the same task type → update agent-routing defaults
• The optimizer agent reviews escalation patterns periodically