/work now probes for cheaper capacity before it burns an expensive session
An expensive session hitting /work used to have two options on small/mid
Preferred work: skip it and leave the backlog stuck, or quietly do it anyway at
full cost. There's now a third: check whether something cheaper can actually
take it, and say so explicitly.
The probe
Before /work hard-skips overqualified work — or spends a high-reasoning-effort
session on small/mid Preferred plans — it now checks scripts/endpoints.yaml
for a lesser, reachable executor. The registry tiers map onto Preferred-models
fit the same way work_once.py already reads them: swarm→small,
executor/executor-heavy/detached→mid, reasoner→reasoner,
frontier→frontier. Listed isn't the same as live — an unreachable worker
doesn't count as a delegation target.
If a cheaper endpoint is up, /work leaves the plan unclaimed and prints the
dispatch line instead of grabbing it itself:
python scripts/work_once.py --once --endpoint h100-executor --registry scripts/endpoints.yaml
When nothing cheaper is reachable
If the fleet is dark or nothing registered fits, the session doing the checking
is the available executor — /work no longer permanently refuses mid work
just because it's overqualified. Instead it right-sizes its own cost and emits a
pasteable command for the current product:
| Product | Lower cost for small/mid | Raise for reasoner+ |
|---|---|---|
| Grok Build TUI | /effort low (or /model <id> low) | /effort high |
| Grok CLI / headless | --effort low | --effort high |
| Nemotron / Qwen3 hybrid | thinking off | thinking on |
High reasoning effort on a mid-class model is a cost dial, not a tier
promotion — a Grok 4.5 session at high effort is still mid for Preferred
matching, not overqualified for mid plans. anchor/model-fitness.md now says
so explicitly for Grok 4.5's row.
Where it landed
The full contract lives in .claude/commands/work.md and its Grok mirror
.grok/skills/work/SKILL.md, ported into platforms/grok-build/GROK.md +
platforms/grok-build/commands/work.md, and documented on the
/work and Grok Build docs pages. True
overqualified work with no cheaper worker reachable still gets a one-line
suggestion — /work --no-fit-check plus the effort command — rather than a
silent claim; underqualified plans still skip outright.