baton-setup

baton-setup

One-time setup for fable-baton. Run each step in order. Never rewrite ~/.claude/settings.json wholesale - edit only the named keys and preserve everything else.

Step 1 - Read current state

1. Read ~/.claude/settings.json (if missing, you will create a minimal one).
2. Check echo "$CLAUDE_CODE_SUBAGENT_MODEL". If set, warn the user: this variable silently overrides every agent's model frontmatter and defeats the tiering. Recommend unsetting it, but do not unset it yourself without approval.

Step 2 - Propose changes and get approval

Show the user exactly what you will change before writing anything:

Key	Rule
model	If absent → set "best". If present with a different value → ask: keep theirs, or switch to "best"? (best resolves to Fable 5 when the account has access, otherwise the latest Opus.) If already "best" → no change.
fallbackModel	If absent → add ["opus", "sonnet"] (covers overload/unavailability). If present → leave it.
availableModels	Only if the key already exists (it is an allowlist): ensure it contains "opus", "sonnet", "haiku", and the chosen main-model value. If absent → do not add it.

Back up the file first: copy it to ~/.claude/settings.json.baton-backup-<YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS> (skip if the file didn't exist).

Step 3 - Apply and validate

Apply the approved edits, then validate: jq empty ~/.claude/settings.json must exit 0 (or parse the JSON yourself if jq is unavailable).

If Claude Code rejects the best alias at startup (older versions), fall back to "opus" and suggest updating Claude Code.

Step 4 - Verify the install

1. Confirm the four agents are available: scout, executor, architect, verifier (ask "which subagent types are available?" or check the Agent tool's list).
2. Confirm the orchestration policy is present in context (it is injected at session start; in a session started before install it won't be - that's expected).
3. Tell the user to restart their Claude Code session: agents and the model setting load at session start.

Step 5 - Report

Summarize: what changed, what was skipped, where the backup is, and that a restart is needed.

Uninstall (on request)

1. /plugin uninstall fable-baton removes the agents, hook, and this skill.
2. In ~/.claude/settings.json: restore model from the oldest settings.json.baton-backup-* file, or remove the key if the backup has none. Remove fallbackModel if the user doesn't want it.