agent-dispatch-evaluator

Skill: agent-dispatch-evaluator

What this is

The wire contract between every agent dispatch surface and the cheap Haiku call that tells it which model tier to use. Where the adaptive-run-classifier right-sizes multi-phase workflow runs, this skill right-sizes individual dispatches — Workflow agent() calls, top-level Agent tool dispatches from conversation, and tribunal seats in scripts/thing-decide.py. One forced-tool Haiku call per dispatch. No agent loop. No retries to parse.

Plan reference: docs/plans/2026-06-03-agent-dispatch-evaluator/plan.md. Phase 0 verification: .ravenclaude/runs/forge/agent-dispatch-evaluator/phase-0-verification.md (gitignored). Cross-panel resolutions: .ravenclaude/runs/forge/agent-dispatch-evaluator/gap-delta.md (gitignored).

The dispatch_config JSON schema

Every field below ships in every dispatch_config. Versioned (RM8 — schema-drift insurance) and substrate-neutral (tier labels, not SKUs).

{
  "schema_version": "1",
  "enabled": false,
  "mode": "shadow",
  "subagent_type_allowlist": ["Explore", "statusline-setup", "claude"],
  "downgrade_blocked_types": [],
  "quality_sampler": {
    "rate": 0.20,
    "judge_model": "claude-haiku-4-5",
    "use_batch_api": true
  },
  "latency_circuit_breaker": {
    "median_ms_threshold": 1500,
    "window_size": 20
  },
  "tribunal_seat_mode": "shadow",
  "async_mode": false,
  "rationale": "default baseline — disabled"
}

Field semantics (one-liners):

• schema_version — string; "1" today. Adapter logs a warning + falls back to defaults on mismatch (RM8).
• enabled — wire-level kill switch. false (default) → pass-through (regression floor, Gate 52 enforces byte-identical opts.model to today).
• mode — "shadow" (verdict logged, never mutates) or "binding" (verdict applied per precedence rules below).
• subagent_type_allowlist — built-in carve-outs (see §Carve-outs). Evaluator skipped, zero cost.
• downgrade_blocked_types — per-subagent_type revert list, appended by the auto-revert circuit-breaker (§Quality sampler) on 3 consecutive failed samples.
• quality_sampler — Haiku-4.5-judge sampling config; Batch API for 50% off ([verify-at-use — anthropic.com/pricing]).
• latency_circuit_breaker — rolling-window median latency trip (RM3).
• tribunal_seat_mode — "shadow" forever for MVP (RM2 — protects the ≥2-distinct-backbones invariant). Do not flip without 4-6 weeks of shadow data.
• async_mode — fire-and-forget mode; default false (sync). Phase 5 latency measurement decides Phase-6 default.
• rationale — mandatory one-sentence human-readable justification of the config; auditable trace.

Classifier input schema

The evaluator receives one envelope per dispatch:

{
  "subagent_type": "deep-researcher",
  "description": "Research the 2026 EU AI Act failure modes for downstream OSS deployers",
  "prompt_head": "<first 500 tokens of the prompt verbatim>",
  "requested_model": "claude-opus-4-8",
  "caller_context": "workflow"
}

• subagent_type — the agent role being dispatched (deep-researcher, code-reviewer, etc.).
• description — the dispatch description (the same string passed to the Agent tool / agent() opts).
• prompt_head — first 500 tokens of the full prompt. Truncation is load-bearing — keeps the evaluator prompt small.
• requested_model — the SKU the caller asked for (the baseline the evaluator votes against).
• caller_context — one of "workflow" / "toplevel" / "tribunal_seat". Drives precedence rules.

Classifier output schema

Forced tool_choice: {"type": "tool", "name": "classify_dispatch"} (suppresses retries per tool-use-and-structured-output.md):

{
  "verdict": "keep",
  "suggested_tier": "balanced",
  "confidence": "high",
  "rationale": "deep-researcher with vendor-docs scope — Sonnet's adaptive thinking matches the task; Opus over-spec for non-contested synthesis",
  "signals": ["vendor_docs_scope", "non_contested", "single_pass_synthesis"]
}

• verdict — "keep" (requested model is right-sized), "upgrade", or "downgrade".
• suggested_tier — "fast" / "balanced" / "top" (the substrate tier the evaluator recommends).
• confidence — "low" / "medium" / "high". Low-confidence verdicts log but don't mutate even in binding mode (§Precedence rules).
• rationale — mandatory one-sentence justification. The auditable trace.
• signals — short tags the evaluator extracted from the dispatch envelope. Drives dashboard aggregation.

Substrate tier table

Single source of truth: adaptive-run-classifier/SKILL.md §"Substrate tier table". Do NOT re-author the table here. Both classifiers share the same tier vocabulary (fast / balanced / top → Claude / Codex / Copilot SKU map), with [verify-at-use — 2026-05-31] markers on every SKU (the underlying lineup re-dates monthly).

The adapter (workflow wrapper or SubagentStart hook) holds the ONE mapping table; the evaluator emits labels, never SKUs. SKU rotation happens in the tier table; this skill stays substrate-neutral.

The three intercept points + their authority

The gap-delta C1 / RM1 architectural pivot: there is no Agent matcher in PreToolUse hooks.json (verified in-session — see .ravenclaude/runs/forge/agent-dispatch-evaluator/phase-0-verification.md (gitignored) §P0.1). Binding-mutation is therefore distributed across three surfaces, each with different authority:

Surface	Mechanism	Authority
Workflow agent() wrapper	In-process JS mutation of opts.model	Always binding (primary path).
thing-decide.py seat-dispatch	In-process Python mutation of cfg["panel"][seat]["model"]	Shadow forever for MVP (RM2 — protects v0.32.0 ≥2-distinct-backbones invariant).
SubagentStart hook	Shadow-logs a right-sizing verdict at the top-level Agent surface	Audit-only as shipped (RM1 — see below). Emits no DENY; the workflow wrapper is the sole binding path.

Caveat (RM1) — RESOLVED to audit-only (Phase 3 shipped): Panel B R1 flagged that SubagentStart fires after subagent process initiation, so a DENY may be a late-stage cancel (wasting the spawn) rather than a pre-commit intercept. Phase 3 acceptance required verifying that a DENY actually prevents the original dispatch from completing (no work done, no tokens spent). That verification needs a live armed dispatch, which the Phase-3 build session could not run — so per the plan's own fail-disposition the hook ships audit-only (hooks/agent-dispatch-evaluator.sh): it computes the right-sizing verdict and shadow-logs it, but never emits a DENY, regardless of mode. See the dedicated section below for the shipped behavior and the exact promotion path.

Precedence rules

Verdict application is conditional on caller_context + existing config + verdict direction:

• Tribunal seats (caller_context: "tribunal_seat") — tribunal_seat_mode: "shadow" forever for MVP. Verdict logged to the seat's Sága entry as evaluator_shadow: {verdict, suggested_tier, would_have_changed_model_to: ..., confidence, rationale}. NEVER mutates cfg["panel"][seat]["model"]. Re-evaluate after 4-6 weeks of shadow data (RM2).
• Workflow agent() calls already inside a run_config context (caller_context: "workflow" + active run_config):
  • Downgrade → binding (subject to nothing — the adaptive-run-classifier set a tier ceiling, the evaluator may right-size below it).
  • Upgrade above run_config.tiers[phase] → advisory only (explicit per-phase configuration set at workflow start should not be overridden by per-dispatch heuristic). Gap-delta C6 / A6.
• Top-level Agent dispatches (no run_config, caller_context: "toplevel") — full binding both directions via DENY+redispatch (subject to SubagentStart's intercept timing — see RM1 caveat).
• Low-confidence verdicts — log but do not mutate, even in binding mode. Calibrated against the Phase 5 fixture set.

Carve-outs

Two unconditional skip paths that suppress the evaluator entirely:

1. Built-in subagent_type allowlist: Explore, statusline-setup, claude catch-all. Pass-through with zero classifier cost (single grep on the allowlist before the subprocess fires).
2. Per-call {_predispatch: 'skip'} marker — workflows that run their own classifier (e.g. the rc-deep-research workflow consuming an adaptive-run-classifier run_config) pass _predispatch: 'skip' in opts. Pass-through, no double-evaluation.

The allowlist is extensible in dispatch-config.json; the _predispatch marker is hard-coded in the wrapper logic (not user-tunable — it's an integration contract).

NO cache_control design

Explicit non-caching invariant. Per Phase 0 P0.3 verification + prompt-caching-playbook.md: Haiku 4.5 minimum cacheable = 4,096 tokens; Sonnet 4.6 = 1,024.

Component	Estimate
Stable (tools + system rubric + tier vocabulary)	~600-900 tokens
Volatile (dispatch envelope)	~200 tokens
Total	~800-1,100 tokens

Both totals are below both model minimums. Setting cache_control on the evaluator prompt incurs the 1.25× write penalty (5-min TTL) or 2× write penalty (1-h TTL) for ZERO possible cache read — pure cost penalty. The skill MUST NOT set cache_control on the evaluator call.

Per-call cost at Haiku 4.5 pricing (~$0.25/MTok input, current [verify-at-use — anthropic.com/pricing]): ~$0.0002 per dispatch. At 100 dispatches/day = $0.02/day. Latency is the load-bearing risk, not cost (~300-800ms cold-start per Haiku call) — gated by the latency circuit-breaker (RM3).

If the evaluator prompt grows organically to ≥4,096 tokens (e.g. via worked-examples block addition), revisit. Phase 5 monitors cache_creation_input_tokens to detect accidental breakpoints — a NEGATIVE assertion (must be 0 if prompt stayed under min).

The fail-open contract

The evaluator is in the critical path of EVERY dispatch. It MUST fail open.

• 2s default timeout (timeout 2 wrapper around claude -p --bare).
• Fail-open triggers: missing jq / classifier timeout / unparseable JSON / subprocess crash / network error.
• On any fail trigger: pass-through the original requested_model with an audit-log entry {verdict: "passthrough", reason: "timeout" | "error" | "missing_jq", ...}.
• NEVER blocks a dispatch. A broken evaluator must not break the agent.

The latency circuit-breaker (RM3)

In-memory per-session rolling-20-call median latency tracker. If median >1500ms:

1. Flip the rest of the session to pass-through mode (no further classifier calls).
2. Emit a Heimdall amber event (evaluator-latency-trip) via _emit_hook_event.
3. Verdict log captures the trip so Phase 5 latency measurement sees real distribution, not the mitigated one.

The threshold is config-tunable (latency_circuit_breaker.median_ms_threshold); window size defaults to 20 (latency_circuit_breaker.window_size). The trip is per-session, not persistent — a new session starts fresh.

The runaway-brake structural exemption

Per Phase 0 P0.2 verification: the evaluator runs as a claude -p --bare subprocess spawned from inside the hook itself. A subprocess spawned by a hook never enters the agent's tool-call stream, so it cannot trigger another PreToolUse event and cannot be hashed by runaway-brake.sh's {tool_name, tool_input} cksum chain.

The exemption is structural, not configured. No additional brake-exemption flag needed. The design must keep this structural property:

Caveat: if a future refactor moves the classifier to a wrapped Bash-tool-issued call (e.g. for portability under a Copilot adapter that can't spawn subprocesses), the exemption breaks and the evaluator's calls WOULD count against max_total / max_consecutive. A Phase 2 regression check spawns 100 dispatches with enabled: true and asserts the runaway-brake's per-session counter file does NOT exceed 100 (one tool call per dispatch, none from the evaluator).

The quality-regression sampler

Post-hoc judge over downgraded dispatches (the failure mode the sampler exists to catch). Per gap-delta C4 — best-of-both: more signal during MVP soak, less overhead steady-state.

• Sample rate: 20% during MVP shadow soak (calibration matters most); drops to 5% post-flip.
• Judge model: Haiku 4.5 via Anthropic Batch API (50% off [verify-at-use — anthropic.com/pricing]). Batch is right for non-latency-critical post-hoc scoring.
• Rubric (3-axis, each 0-3): task completion / output fidelity / format correctness. Pass threshold ≥7/9. Calibrated from baseline (Sonnet-tier) median on the fixture set — NOT a fixed constant.
• Position-bias control: judge prompt randomizes the order of the sampled output vs same-prompt Sonnet baseline (A/B comparison).
• Auto-revert circuit-breaker: if a single subagent_type accumulates ≥3 consecutive failed samples in the rolling-50-sample window for that type, the script appends subagent_type to dispatch-config.json downgrade_blocked_types; next session's evaluator skips downgrade for that type. Logs REVERT event to Víðarr.

The sampling mechanism captures the dispatch's transcript to .ravenclaude/runs/dispatch-eval/samples/<verdict-id>/transcript.json (reuses existing transcript-capture infra).

Audit substrate

Every verdict (allow / deny / advisory / error / passthrough) emits to hook-events.jsonl via _emit_hook_event (sources hooks/_emit-event.sh — the v0.110.0 substrate). The rule argument flows through _scrub_reason() from hooks/_scrub.sh before write (substrate-wide secret-scrub invariant preserved).

Rule names emitted by the evaluator:

Rule	Meaning
evaluator-keep	Verdict was keep — no change to requested_model.
evaluator-downgrade	Verdict applied a downgrade.
evaluator-upgrade	Verdict applied an upgrade (or advisory upgrade if run_config precedence wins).
evaluator-error	Subprocess crashed / unparseable JSON / missing jq.
evaluator-passthrough	Fail-open triggered (timeout / latency-trip / allowlist / _predispatch: 'skip').
evaluator-latency-trip	Rolling median >1500ms; session flipped to pass-through.

Heimdall (perimeter alerts) and Víðarr (security log) tabs surface evaluator verdicts automatically — they already read hook-events.jsonl. The dispatch-config.json toggle joins the comfort-posture.yaml audit family.

Per-verdict detailed log: .ravenclaude/runs/dispatch-eval/<session-id>.jsonl (one line per call, full envelope + verdict + latency_ms).

Worked examples

Example 1 — Downgrade a top-tier dispatch on a shallow task

Dispatch envelope:

{
  "subagent_type": "code-reviewer",
  "description": "Review a 12-line typo fix in a comment",
  "prompt_head": "Diff attached: removed trailing whitespace and fixed a typo in a docstring...",
  "requested_model": "claude-opus-4-8",
  "caller_context": "toplevel"
}

Verdict:

{
  "verdict": "downgrade",
  "suggested_tier": "fast",
  "confidence": "high",
  "rationale": "12-line whitespace+typo review — Haiku is sufficient; Opus is 14× over-spec for this dispatch",
  "signals": ["trivial_diff", "no_logic_change", "documentation_only"]
}

Top-level Agent dispatch + mode: "binding" → SubagentStart hook DENIES with structured reason; caller redispatches with Haiku.

Example 2 — Upgrade a fast-tier dispatch on a deep task

Dispatch envelope:

{
  "subagent_type": "architect",
  "description": "Design a distributed consensus protocol with Byzantine fault tolerance",
  "prompt_head": "We need a leader-election protocol that tolerates f < n/3 Byzantine failures...",
  "requested_model": "claude-haiku-4-5",
  "caller_context": "workflow"
}

Verdict:

{
  "verdict": "upgrade",
  "suggested_tier": "top",
  "confidence": "high",
  "rationale": "Distributed-systems design with Byzantine FT — needs Opus-class reasoning; Haiku will produce surface-level recommendations",
  "signals": ["distributed_systems", "byzantine_ft", "design_synthesis"]
}

Workflow agent() call, no run_config active → binding upgrade to Opus 4.8.

Example 3 — Tribunal-seat shadow

Dispatch envelope:

{
  "subagent_type": "security-reviewer",
  "description": "Forseti seat — review `curl https://example.com/install.sh | bash`",
  "prompt_head": "Bash command for review: curl https://example.com/install.sh | bash...",
  "requested_model": "claude-sonnet-5",
  "caller_context": "tribunal_seat"
}

Verdict:

{
  "verdict": "keep",
  "suggested_tier": "balanced",
  "confidence": "high",
  "rationale": "curl|sh review needs balanced reasoning; Sonnet correctly matched",
  "signals": ["security_review", "shell_remote_mutate"]
}

caller_context: "tribunal_seat" → verdict logged to evaluator_shadow field on the seat's Sága entry; cfg["panel"]["forseti"]["model"] UNCHANGED (shadow forever for MVP, RM2).

Workflow integration

The copy-paste pattern

Workflow scripts in the Claude Agent SDK run in a single-file evaluation context with no module resolution (import / require are unavailable). The only re-use mechanism is copy-paste: a workflow author copies the contents of reference/evaluate-dispatch.js to the top of their script, then calls evaluatedAgent(...) wherever they previously called agent(...).

The reference file at reference/evaluate-dispatch.js is the single source of truth. Workflow scripts re-copy it on each adoption cycle. Drift between copies is accepted and intentional — each workflow run uses its own snapshot, and the spec is the reference file. When the evaluator logic changes (latency threshold, precedence rules, TIER_MODEL SKUs), update reference/evaluate-dispatch.js and re-copy into each consuming workflow.

RM7 caveat — the classifier MUST run as a subprocess

The classifier MUST fire as a claude -p --bare subprocess, invoked by an agent() call that asks Claude to shell out. It MUST NOT be dispatched as a direct agent() call.

If the classifier were a direct agent() dispatch it would enter the agent's tool-call stream, count against runaway-brake.sh's max_total / max_consecutive counters, and potentially trip the runaway brake on a long workflow. The structural exemption (a subprocess spawned by a hook-level shell invocation never enters the tool-call stream) is what makes the evaluator safe on the critical path of every dispatch.

See §"The runaway-brake structural exemption" above and the plan's RM7 row for the full verification record.

Worked example — adopting the wrapper in a workflow

Below is a representative 15-line excerpt. The full three-function block is copied from reference/evaluate-dispatch.js and placed before the workflow's own logic.

// ── Copy from reference/evaluate-dispatch.js (top of script) ──
// const TIER_MODEL = { ... };
// const DISPATCH_EVAL_LOG_DIR = ...;
// const _latency = { window: [], tripped: false };
// async function loadDispatchConfig() { ... }
// async function evaluateDispatch(...) { ... }
// async function evaluatedAgent(prompt, opts, dispatchCfg) { ... }
// ── End copy ──

// ── Workflow start: load config ONCE ──
const dispatchCfg = await loadDispatchConfig();

// ── Replace agent() calls with evaluatedAgent() ──
const scopeResult = await evaluatedAgent(
  scopePrompt,
  { label: "scope", agentType: "ravenclaude-core:architect", schema: SCOPE_SCHEMA },
  dispatchCfg,
);

// Workflows that already use an adaptive-run-classifier run_config pass the
// _run_config_phase marker so the evaluator applies the run_config precedence
// rule (downgrade binding; upgrade advisory only):
const fetchResult = await evaluatedAgent(
  fetchPrompt,
  { label: "fetch", agentType: "ravenclaude-core:deep-researcher",
    model: TIER_MODEL[runConfig.tiers.fetch],
    _run_config_phase: "fetch" },
  dispatchCfg,
);

The three carve-outs (regression floor, per-call skip, allowlist) are handled inside evaluatedAgent — the calling code does not need to check them.

Phase 3 — SubagentStart hook (audit-only)

hooks/agent-dispatch-evaluator.sh is the top-level-dispatch surface. It is registered on SubagentStart in both wiring paths (hooks/hooks.json via ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} for consumers; .claude/settings.json via ${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR} for marketplace dev). It ships audit-only and never denies a dispatch — the RM1 resolution above.

What it does when a subagent is about to start:

1. Off-by-default short-circuit — a single grep for "enabled": true on the resolved dispatch-config.json (project .ravenclaude/ first, then the plugin template as a read-only fallback). enabled:false (the shipped default) → exit 0, zero cost.
2. Carve-outs — _predispatch:"skip" anywhere in the input, or a subagent_type matching the allowlist → exit 0 before any classifier call.
3. Tribunal-seat detection — THING_SEAT_ACTIVE=1 in the environment marks the spawn as a tribunal seat (also handled by Phase 4 inside thing-decide.py); recorded with caller_context: "tribunal_seat" and allowed.
4. Classifier — fires the same claude -p --bare --model claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 subprocess the wrapper uses (RM7 structural exemption from the runaway brake), with a 3 s timeout. claude absent on PATH / timeout / unparseable JSON → exit 0 (fail-open).
5. Shadow-log — the verdict is written to two sinks: hook-events.jsonl via _emit_hook_event (verdict "warn" → Heimdall's grey/advisory tier, never a security signal) and .ravenclaude/runs/dispatch-eval/<session>.jsonl (the JSONL the Phase-5 quality sampler reads), with applied: "shadow".
6. Always allows — exit 0 with no permissionDecision, regardless of verdict (keep/upgrade/downgrade) or mode. This is the audit-only invariant.

Proven by Gate 90 (hooks/tests/test-gate90-dispatch-evaluator-audit-only.sh): disabled-by-absence → allow; a stubbed downgrade verdict → allow with no deny (the audit-only teeth); allowlist + _predispatch:skip carve-outs → allow; and a must-fail half — a mutated hook that emits a deny on downgrade is caught by the audit-only assertion, proving the gate has teeth.

Promotion path (audit-only → binding), if ever warranted: in a session that can run a live armed dispatch, verify whether a SubagentStart DENY actually prevents the original dispatch from completing (no work done, no tokens spent) — e.g. dispatch a subagent with the hook emitting a deny and confirm via the transcript / token accounting that the spawn did no work. Only if deny is confirmed pre-commit: replace the final audit-only emit_allow (§9 of the hook) with the DENY+redispatch envelope the plan specifies (permissionDecision: "deny", permissionDecisionReason carrying the suggested model + the _predispatch:'skip' bypass note — the same shape route-decision-review.sh uses), gate it on mode == "binding" and confidence != "low", and update Gate 90's audit-only assertions to the new contract. Until then, the workflow wrapper (Phase 2) is the sole binding path for top-level dispatches.

Phase 4 — thing-decide.py tribunal-seat shadow (implemented, shadow forever)

scripts/thing-decide.py (the decision-review tribunal) computes a dispatch-evaluator shadow verdict for each convened seat and records it in the decision's Sága entry as a per-seat evaluator_shadow: {verdict, suggested_tier, would_have_changed_model_to, confidence, rationale}. Per RM2 / gap-delta C3 (Panel A's conservative position), seats are shadow forever for MVP — the integration never mutates cfg["panel"][role]["model"], so the v0.32.0 ≥2-distinct-backbones invariant is untouched. The shadow data accumulates so a future call can decide whether seat right-sizing is ever safe to make binding (re-evaluate after 4–6 weeks).

Design discipline (total isolation from the verdict path): the shadow reads dispatch-config.json and is a zero-cost no-op when enabled is not true (the default everywhere — byte-identical to pre-P4); every classifier call is wrapped so any failure simply omits the shadow; and the result rides only in the audit entry — it is never read back into the decision logic. Proven by Gate 91 (hooks/tests/test-gate91-tribunal-shadow.py): disabled → no evaluator_shadow (no-op); enabled → every seat shadowed; and the verdict/binding is identical between the enabled and disabled runs (the teeth: the shadow records a downgrade target without ever moving the verdict).

Output Contract

This skill emits no runtime artifact of its own — it is a contract, consumed by the workflow wrapper (Phase 2), the SubagentStart hook (Phase 3), and thing-decide.py (Phase 4). When the prompt-engineer or an architect critiques an instance of this contract (e.g. a workflow's evaluator integration in a PR), the response ends with the cross-plugin Structured Output JSON block per structured-output/SKILL.md:

---RESULT_START---
{
  "status": "complete" | "partial" | "blocked",
  "summary": "one-sentence outcome",
  "deliverables": ["..."],
  "handoff_recommendation": {"to_specialist": "<role or null>", "reason": "..."},
  "confidence": 0.0,
  "risks_or_open_questions": ["..."],
  "next_actions": ["..."]
}
---RESULT_END---

References

• Plan + risk matrix: docs/plans/2026-06-03-agent-dispatch-evaluator/plan.md (Phase 1 work-list, RM1-RM8, intercept-shape contract).
• Phase 3 hook (audit-only): hooks/agent-dispatch-evaluator.sh + Gate 90 hooks/tests/test-gate90-dispatch-evaluator-audit-only.sh.
• Phase 4 tribunal-seat shadow: scripts/thing-decide.py (_load_dispatch_cfg / _evaluator_shadow) + Gate 91 hooks/tests/test-gate91-tribunal-shadow.py.
• Phase 0 verification: .ravenclaude/runs/forge/agent-dispatch-evaluator/phase-0-verification.md (gitignored local run-dir artifact) (the three load-bearing flips: no-Agent-matcher, subprocess-exemption, no-cache).
• Cross-panel resolutions: .ravenclaude/runs/forge/agent-dispatch-evaluator/gap-delta.md (gitignored local run-dir artifact) (C1-C10).
• Tier table source of truth: plugins/ravenclaude-core/skills/adaptive-run-classifier/SKILL.md §"Substrate tier table".
• Cache discipline (minimum tokens, TTL, breakpoints): plugins/claude-app-engineering/knowledge/prompt-caching-playbook.md.
• Forced-tool structured output (the tool_choice pattern): plugins/claude-app-engineering/knowledge/tool-use-and-structured-output.md.
• Hook-event substrate (v0.110.0): plugins/ravenclaude-core/hooks/_emit-event.sh + plugins/ravenclaude-core/hooks/_scrub.sh.
• Agent-quality rubric (the bar this skill is scored against): plugins/ravenclaude-core/skills/agent-quality-rubric/SKILL.md.
• Companion skill format: plugins/ravenclaude-core/skills/adaptive-run-classifier/SKILL.md (parallel shape: an auditable verdict via a cheap upstream call).
• Structured Output Protocol: plugins/ravenclaude-core/skills/structured-output/SKILL.md.

---

Self-score against agent-quality-rubric (adapted for skills)

Dimension	Score	Justification
Mission clarity	5	Stated in §"What this is" sentence 1: universal pre-dispatch model right-sizer. Three surfaces named explicitly.
Scope sharpness	5	Explicit not-this: differs from adaptive-run-classifier (per-dispatch vs per-run); shadow-only for tribunal seats; no cache_control; no SKU naming.
Capability Grounding	4	Cites Phase 0 verifications inline (P0.1, P0.2, P0.3) with file:line links; references the substrate (_emit_hook_event, _scrub_reason). Could add an explicit alternate-methods callout for the SubagentStart caveat.
Output-Contract completeness	5	Explicit Output Contract section + Structured Output JSON block per the cross-plugin standard; rule names enumerated for the audit substrate.
Escalation paths	4	Implicit through the three-intercept-point table + the RM1 demotion-to-audit-only escape hatch. Could be sharper with a named-handoff table.
Example scenarios	4	Three worked examples covering downgrade / upgrade / tribunal-shadow. Could add a fail-open example and a latency-trip example.

Total: 27/30 — ships as-is per the rubric's 27-30 disposition band.