down-skilling

Down-Skilling: Opus → Haiku Distillation

Translate your reasoning capabilities into explicit, structured instructions that Haiku 4.5 can execute reliably. You are a compiler: your input is context, intent, and domain knowledge; your output is a Haiku-ready prompt with decision procedures and diverse examples.

Core Principle

Opus infers from WHY. Haiku executes from WHAT and HOW.

Your job: convert implicit reasoning, contextual judgment, and domain expertise into explicit procedures, concrete decision trees, and demonstrative examples. Every inference you would make silently, Haiku needs stated explicitly.

Economics: Why Examples Are Free

Opus 4.8 costs 5× Haiku 4.5 on both sides ($5/$25 vs $1/$5 per MTok; 2026-07 pricing). A task that costs $1.00 on Opus costs ~$0.20 on Haiku — but only if Haiku gets it right on the first try. One retry halves the savings; a few retries makes Haiku more expensive.

The math that matters:

• Input tokens are cheap (Haiku 4.5: $1.00/MTok input vs $5.00/MTok output)
• Adding 2,000 tokens of examples costs ~$0.002 per call
• A single failed-then-retried call costs ~$0.008+ in wasted output
• Examples pay for themselves if they prevent even 1-in-5 retries

What this means for prompt design:

• If you're sending an 8K token document, you can afford 3-4K tokens of examples — the examples cost less than the document itself
• Lengthy input prompts don't inflate output costs — output pricing is independent of input length
• The constraint is not token cost but diminishing returns: after 5-7 examples, additional examples rarely improve performance

Bottom line: Every example that prevents a Haiku misfire saves 5-25× its input cost in wasted output tokens. Under-investing in examples is the most expensive mistake in down-skilling.

Before Distilling: Check Whether the Task Needs It (2026-07 calibration)

This skill's gap catalog was originally derived from model-card priors. A 2026-07-15 empirical calibration (300 measured Haiku 4.5 calls; data in the agent-routing skill's references/calibration-2026-07-15.md) found Haiku 4.5 substantially stronger than those priors on mechanically checkable work: 240/240 on nested modular arithmetic (16-leaf expression trees), 30-hop function chains, 25-operation state tracking, trap-laden word math, and 5-simultaneous-constraint sentence generation (exact word counts, required/forbidden tokens, a lipogram) — at effort: low, and in one control with chain-of-thought suppressed entirely. On the same battery Sonnet at low effort scored 17/20, missing exact-count constraints Haiku satisfied.

Triage before investing in a full distillation:

1. Output mechanically checkable (schema validates, tests run, counts count, regex matches)? → A minimal prompt + a deterministic verifier + retry-or-escalate-on-fail is cheaper and more reliable than an example-heavy prompt with no verifier. Spend your effort writing the checker, not the examples. Precision constraints ("exactly N words") held reliably when the prompt defined the counting rule explicitly ("a word = any run of letters or apostrophes") — definitional precision, not scaffolding volume, did the work.
2. Output requires judgment (tone, relevance, quality, ambiguity resolution)? → This is what the rest of this skill is for. Distill fully: procedures, rubrics, n-shot examples.
3. Mixed? → Split the task. Route the checkable part per (1); distill only the judgment part.

Iteration warning (measured, same calibration): never ask Haiku to blindly re-improve its own output in a loop. On correct answers, re-application returned the identity (0 changes in 96 loop-pairs); on the one output that did change, quality regressed on the second pass and then froze on the degraded text for all remaining passes. If you iterate, score every iteration with an out-of-band checker or judge, keep argmax, and stop at the first regression.

Activation

When triggered, perform these steps:

1. Extract task context from the conversation: what is the user trying to accomplish? What domain knowledge applies? What quality criteria matter?

2. Identify the reasoning gaps — what would Opus infer automatically that Haiku needs spelled out? Common gaps:

   • Ambiguity resolution (Opus picks the sensible interpretation; Haiku needs a decision rule)
   • Quality judgment (Opus knows "good enough"; Haiku needs explicit criteria)
   • Edge case handling (Opus reasons through novel situations; Haiku needs enumerated cases)
   • Output calibration (Opus matches tone/length intuitively; Haiku needs explicit constraints)

3. Generate the distilled prompt following the structure in Prompt Architecture

4. Generate 4-7 diverse examples following the principles in Example Design — this is the highest-leverage step

5. Audit your example set before delivering. Two checks, both must pass:

   • Source-anchoring: for each example output, every concrete fact (named technology, number, comparison, quoted phrase) is inferrable from that example's input. If you can't reproduce the output knowing only the input, either add the detail to the input or remove it from the output. Invented facts in examples cause Haiku to copy the invention pattern at runtime.
   • Length calibration: example output lengths sit inside the stated output range. If your rule says "60–90 words" but your examples average 35, the rule will not hold — Haiku follows the example central tendency.

   If either check fails, regenerate the offending examples before delivering. Examples beat rules; misaligned examples beat aligned rules.

6. Deliver the complete Haiku-ready prompt as a copyable artifact or file, including system prompt and user prompt components as appropriate

Prompt Architecture

Structure every distilled prompt with these components in this order. Haiku responds best to this specific sequencing:

<role>
[Single sentence: who Haiku is and what it does]
</role>

<task>
[2-3 sentences: the specific task, its purpose, and the deliverable]
</task>

<rules>
[Numbered list of explicit constraints. Be precise about:]
- Output format (JSON schema, markdown structure, etc.)
- Length bounds (word/token counts, not vague "brief"/"detailed")
- Required elements (must-include fields or sections)
- Prohibited behaviors (specific failure modes to avoid)
- Decision rules for ambiguous cases
</rules>

<process>
[Numbered steps. Maximum 7 steps. Each step is one action.]
[Include validation checkpoints: "Before proceeding, verify X"]
[Include decision points: "If X, do Y. If Z, do W."]
</process>

<examples>
[4-7 diverse examples showing input → output pairs]
[This section should be the LARGEST part of the prompt]
[See Example Design section for distribution requirements]
</examples>

<context>
[Task-specific data, reference material, or domain knowledge]
[Use labels: [Context], [Policy], [Reference]]
</context>

Haiku Optimization Rules

Apply these when generating any Haiku-targeted prompt:

Structure & Syntax

• Use XML tags to delimit every section — Haiku respects labeled boundaries
• Keep sentences under 25 words where possible
• One instruction per sentence; split compound instructions
• Use numbered steps, not prose paragraphs, for procedures
• Specify token/word budgets explicitly: "respond in 80-120 words"

Reasoning Support

• Replace open-ended judgment with decision rubrics: BAD: "Assess whether the code is production-ready" GOOD: "Check: (a) no TODO comments, (b) all functions have error handling, (c) no hardcoded secrets. Score pass/fail per item."
• Bound reasoning depth: "Think in 3-5 steps, then give your answer"
• Provide a fallback for uncertainty: "If you cannot determine X, respond with: 'UNCERTAIN: [brief reason]'"

Context Management

• Front-load critical instructions (Haiku attends strongly to position)
• Budget rule of thumb: instructions + rules ≤ 800 tokens, examples get the rest. For a task processing an 8K document, 3-4K tokens of examples is well within budget and pays for itself in reliability
• Pass only the 1-3 most relevant context snippets, not full documents
• Use explicit delimiters between context and instructions

Output Control

• Require structured output (JSON, labeled sections) for extractable results
• Provide an output template Haiku can fill in
• Specify what comes first in the response: "Begin your response with..."
• For classification tasks, enumerate all valid categories

Failure Prevention

• Anticipate Haiku's common failure modes and add guardrails:
  • Hallucination: "Use ONLY information from the provided context. If the answer is not in the context, say 'Not found in sources.'"
  • Verbosity: "Maximum 150 words. Do not add preamble or caveats."
  • Format drift: Include the output schema in both rules and examples
  • Instruction skipping: Number all constraints; reference them in the process steps: "Apply rules 2-4 from "

Example Design

Examples are the single highest-leverage investment in a Haiku prompt. Rules tell Haiku what to do; examples show it what "done right" looks like. When rules and examples conflict, Haiku follows the examples. When rules are ambiguous, Haiku extrapolates from examples. This makes examples the primary steering mechanism — not a supplement to rules, but the dominant signal.

Given the economics (see Economics), you should invest heavily here. A prompt with 800 tokens of rules and 3,000 tokens of examples will outperform one with 2,000 tokens of rules and 500 tokens of examples almost every time.

Minimum Example Count: 4

Generate 4-7 diverse examples per distilled prompt. Fewer than 4 is under-investing. The marginal cost of each example is negligible compared to the reliability improvement. Use this distribution:

#	Role	Purpose
1	Typical case	The most common, straightforward input. Establishes the baseline pattern.
2	Second typical variant	A different but common input — varies length, domain, or structure from #1. Prevents Haiku from over-fitting to a single pattern.
3	Edge case	Unusual but valid input: empty fields, very long text, special characters, boundary conditions, ambiguous phrasing.
4	Negative case (tagged BAD/GOOD pair)	For tasks where Haiku could output something plausible-but-wrong (rewriting, summarization, NL→command, anything that rewards confident specificity), include an example pair tagged "BAD output:" and "GOOD output:" that demonstrates the specific failure mode you want to prevent for this task — invented architecture details, invented CLI flags, invented numbers, etc. A generic "bad output" example is much less effective than one that names the failure category Haiku is most likely to fall into.
5+	Tricky/boundary cases	Inputs near decision boundaries where Haiku is most likely to fail. The cases you'd use for a test suite.

Why the second typical case matters: With only one typical example, Haiku may latch onto incidental features of that example (its length, word choice, domain). A second typical case from a different angle shows Haiku which features are task-relevant and which are coincidental.

Example Format

<example>
<input>
[Realistic input data — use real-world length and complexity]
</input>
<output>
[Exact format Haiku should produce — not a description, the actual output]
</output>
<reasoning>
[1-2 sentences: WHY this output is correct. Which rules applied.
 What Haiku might have gotten wrong without this example.]
</reasoning>
</example>

The <reasoning> tag is not optional for complex tasks. It acts as a chain-of-thought anchor, showing Haiku the reasoning pattern to follow. For classification and extraction tasks, reasoning should reference the specific rule numbers that drive the decision.

When the input could be abstract: model the silence

Some tasks (rewriting, summarization, voice/register editing, explanation-from-source) take inputs where the source content is itself abstract — marketing copy, vague descriptions, high-level summaries. These tasks are uniquely prone to a failure mode where Haiku invents concrete details that sound right for the domain but aren't in the source.

Symptom: an output that confidently mentions specifics — algorithm names, technology choices, percentile numbers, version comparisons — not present in the input.

Fix: include an example pair where the input is genuinely abstract and the output explicitly acknowledges what is unspecified, rather than filling the gap with plausible-sounding inferences. Pattern:

<example>
<input>
"We're excited to release our new search backend. We think it's a
massive upgrade over the old one."
</input>
<output>
New search backend released. The announcement does not specify the
underlying changes — whether they affect indexing, ranking, query
parsing, or operational characteristics is not stated. Migration
guidance will follow. The old search path remains available during
transition.
</output>
<reasoning>
The source provides only one factual claim ("released") and one
unverifiable claim ("upgrade"). The output stays at the source's
level of abstraction and explicitly names the categories of
information the source omits, rather than inventing plausible
specifics (algorithm changes, performance numbers, technology names).
</reasoning>
</example>

Pair this with the tagged BAD/GOOD negative example (row 4 in the distribution table above) that demonstrates the exact invention you want to prevent. On a voice-rewrite task, switching from un-anchored examples to this pattern dropped Haiku's architectural-hallucination rate from 95% to 0% (n=25 across two probes).

Example Sizing Guidance

Task processing...	Recommended example budget
Short inputs (<500 tokens)	1,500-2,500 tokens of examples (4-5 examples)
Medium inputs (500-4K tokens)	2,500-4,000 tokens of examples (4-6 examples)
Long inputs (4K-8K tokens)	3,000-5,000 tokens of examples (5-7 examples)

These budgets assume Haiku's 200K context window. The constraint is diminishing returns, not cost — after 7 examples the marginal benefit drops sharply unless the task has a very large classification space.

Example Quality Criteria

• Examples must be realistic, not toy data — match the complexity and messiness of real inputs
• Output format must be identical across all examples — Haiku treats format inconsistency as a signal that format doesn't matter
• Include the hardest case you expect Haiku to handle
• Vary input characteristics: length, complexity, domain, tone
• Never include an example that contradicts your rules
• Order examples from simplest to most complex — this progressive difficulty helps Haiku build up its understanding
• Source-anchor every concrete fact. Each specific noun, number, or claim in an example output must be inferrable from that example's input. If your example output invents a plausible architectural detail, Haiku will copy that invention pattern even when its real input doesn't support it. Audit by covering the input and asking: "could I have produced this output knowing only the input?" If not, fix one or the other.
• Match example length to the stated output range. Examples outweigh rules on length. If your rules say "output 60–90 words" but your examples average 35 words, Haiku will produce ~35 words. Calibrate example output lengths to sit inside (or slightly above) the stated output range.

Delivery Format

Present the distilled prompt in a code block or artifact with clear section markers. Include:

1. System prompt (if applicable): role + persistent rules
2. User prompt template: with {{placeholders}} for variable content
3. Examples: embedded in the prompt or as a separate few-shot section
4. Usage notes: any caveats about when this prompt may fail and what to watch for

When generating for API use, include the model parameter and recommended settings:

model: claude-haiku-4-5-20251001
max_tokens: [appropriate for task]
temperature: 0 (for deterministic tasks) or 0.3 (for creative tasks)

Agentic Resource Selection

The skill includes two directories of granular reference files. Do NOT read them all. Scan the index below, then read only the files relevant to the current task.

gaps/

Each file documents one reasoning pattern where Haiku diverges from Opus, with a tested mitigation strategy. Read 2-4 per task.

File	Use when the task involves...
ambiguity-resolution.md	Input that has multiple valid interpretations; vague user requests
code-generation.md	Generating code, scripts, or queries; style matching to existing code
comparative-analysis.md	Comparing options, pros/cons, tradeoff analysis
conditional-logic.md	Decision trees, branching rules, nested if/then logic
context-utilization.md	Long context windows, documents >2K tokens, position-sensitive info
counting-enumeration.md	"Generate exactly N items", counting occurrences, list lengths
creative-generation.md	Writing, tone adaptation, persona consistency, style matching
implicit-constraints.md	Tasks where tone, audience, or format norms are assumed not stated
instruction-density.md	Tasks requiring 8+ simultaneous constraints; complex rule sets
multi-hop-reasoning.md	3+ step inference chains; cause-effect-consequence analysis
multi-turn-consistency.md	Chatbot behavior, stateful conversations, persona maintenance
negation-handling.md	Constraints phrased as "don't", "never", "avoid"; prohibitions
nuanced-classification.md	Borderline cases, multi-label classification, overlapping categories
output-calibration.md	Length control, format precision, verbosity management (ALWAYS read)
parallel-consistency.md	Generating multiple similar items; lists where format must be uniform
partial-information.md	Missing fields, incomplete input, optional data, error states
schema-adherence.md	Structured output (JSON, tables) that must survive edge-case inputs
self-correction.md	Tasks needing verification; quality checks before output
summarization-fidelity.md	Summarizing documents without distortion, position bias, or fabrication
tool-use-planning.md	Multi-tool workflows, API orchestration, dependency ordering

examples/

Complete before/after distillations. Each shows an Opus-level task → Haiku-optimized prompt with annotated examples. Read 1-2 closest to the current task domain.

File	Use when distilling...
api-orchestration.md	Multi-step tool/API workflows with dependencies and branching
code-review-triage.md	Analysis tasks with severity classification and structured JSON output
content-moderation.md	Safety-critical classification with "when uncertain" defaults
creative-rewriting.md	Tone adaptation, audience-aware rewriting, style transfer
data-extraction.md	Schema-bound extraction from unstructured text to JSON
document-qa.md	RAG / retrieval-grounded QA with citation and "not found" handling
email-summarization.md	Information extraction from conversations/threads into sections
meeting-notes.md	Transcript processing into decisions, actions, and next steps
resume-screening.md	Multi-criteria evaluation with parallel scoring structure
sql-generation.md	Natural language to code with schema constraints and error handling
step-by-step-analysis.md	Multi-step analytical reasoning with explicit decision rubrics
text-classification.md	Multi-label classification with confidence and ambiguity handling

Self-Check

Before delivering, verify the distilled prompt against these criteria:

• Every Opus inference is made explicit
• All constraints are numbered and cross-referenced
• 4+ diverse examples with consistent output format
• Examples include: 2 typical, 1+ edge case, 1+ negative/rejection case
• Example tokens ≥ 2× rule tokens (examples should be the bulk of the prompt)
• No instruction assumes Haiku will "figure it out"
• Decision points have explicit branches, not open-ended judgment
• Output format is demonstrated, not just described
• <reasoning> tags explain WHY each example output is correct