Claude Pilot Suite

Version: 0.3.0 (2026-05-07 — Source-Verify gate, Easy-recall fast-path, Mid-Write Checkpoint from v0.2.1 benchmark gap analysis)
License: MIT
Validated on: Claude Sonnet 4.6 + Haiku 4.5 + Opus 4.7 (4-iteration benchmark, n=10 task corpus)

A portable, opinionated execution playbook for Claude Code that provides:

Haiku 4.5 quality close to Opus 4.7 (Haiku Pilot mode) — with 70–85% cost savings
Sonnet 4.6 quality floor protection + predictable escalation (Sonnet Pilot mode) — with 55–65% cost savings

What "quality floor protection" means: on structured wiki-extraction tasks, Sonnet+SKILL ≈ Sonnet Plain (both ~283/300 vs Opus 286/300 in A/B/C benchmark). The SKILL's value is in preventing quality drops on complex tasks (ambiguous requirements, multi-step agentic, cross-module design) — not in boosting already-strong performance on routine extraction. Think of it as insurance: no premium on good days, prevents catastrophic failure on hard days.

Built on the empirical finding that prompt structure + sub-agent delegation often matters more than raw model capability. Documented in two arXiv-backed studies:

AgentOpt (arxiv 2604.06296): On HotpotQA, Opus alone = 31.71%; Ministral planner + Opus solver = 74.27%.
Augment Code AGENTS.md eval (2026-04): Best-quality docs ≈ one model tier upgrade. Bad docs are worse than none.

What's in this suite

claude-pilot-suite/
├── rules/                          # Auto-loaded baseline discipline
│   ├── core.md                       Language / Git / surgical changes / quality
│   ├── subagent-strategy.md          Sub-agent delegation criteria + advisor mode
│   ├── context-management.md         Context window monitoring + compact strategy
│   ├── output-discipline.md          Plain-text formatting rules (no fluff)
│   ├── haiku-pilot.md                Mode declaration + escalation gates (Haiku→Sonnet/Opus)
│   └── sonnet-pilot.md               Mode declaration + escalation gates (Sonnet→Opus)
├── skills/                         # On-demand playbooks (loaded only when triggered)
│   ├── haiku-pilot/SKILL.md          Default-Haiku execution + 6-step pre-flight (incl. Source-Verify gate)
│   └── sonnet-pilot/SKILL.md         Quality-first Sonnet execution + 6-step pre-flight (incl. Mid-Write Checkpoint)
├── examples/
│   └── CLAUDE.md.template            Sample CLAUDE.md to integrate the suite
├── README.md
├── INSTALL.md
└── LICENSE

Two modes, one suite

Haiku Pilot (cost-first, default)

Trigger: "haiku" / "Haiku" / "Haiku mode" / "haiku-pilot"

Philosophy: weak planner + strong delegation > strong planner alone. Default to Haiku, dispatch sub-agents aggressively, escalate only on quantitative gate triggers.

Escalation gates:

Same problem failed ≥ 3 times → Sonnet
Task touches ≥ 10 files → Sonnet
Architecture / design / security keywords → Opus or advisor()
Code-gen > 300 LoC unrequested → halt, redispatch to Sonnet implementer

Expected savings: 70–85% vs full-Opus baseline (assuming 80/15/5 task distribution).

Sonnet Pilot (quality-first)

Trigger: "sonnet" / "Sonnet" / "Sonnet mode" / "sonnet-pilot"

Philosophy: deep context engineering + Opus-on-demand via advisor() ≈ full Opus quality.

Pre-flight enforcements (Sonnet's high confidence biases toward skipping these):

Reference Pattern (point to a file, not abstract)
Decision-Log (every non-obvious choice → Choice: ... / Rejected: ... — Reason: ...)
Reasoning Chain Before Code
Self-Review Loop (git diff --stat + per-file explanation)
Intermediate Checkpoint (pause and verify per step)
Mid-Write Outline Verification (architecture / counter-factual / synthesis tasks: at ~200w drafted, verify scope / projected total / mandatory-citation coverage — catches runaway answers while still cheap to fix)

Escalation gate to Opus: stricter than haiku-pilot's, because Opus is 5× the cost.

Expected savings: 55–65% vs full-Opus baseline.

Why these specifically (vs raw model selection)

The suite is the synthesis of 4 benchmark iterations measuring how prompt structure affects answer quality across model tiers. Key findings:

Finding	Implication
Sub-agent delegation > model upgrade for multi-step tasks	Default to Haiku + delegate, not jump to Opus
Citation density correlates with reviewer-verifiable quality	Pre-flight #4 Citation Anchor enforcement
Anti-expansion self-check tables prevent 2.24× word inflation	Self-Review Loop uses single-table format
Sonnet's confidence bias = skip self-review unless externally enforced	Pre-flight #4 is mandatory in Sonnet Pilot
Haiku's tendency to skip assumption disclosure	Pre-flight #2 enforces it
Haiku fabricates numbers on hard citation tasks (5/20 cases in v0.2.1 benchmark)	Pre-flight #5 Source-Verify gate (`grep -i` every cited number against source)
Self-check overhead can exceed value on tiny answers (Q01/Q04 net-negative vs vanilla)	Task-type Fast-path: easy recall replaces the self-check table with a one-line `fast-path: <reason>`

Install

See INSTALL.md for three installation methods (clone+symlink / copy / subtree).

Quick version:

# Clone next to your project, then symlink
git clone https://github.com/<your-fork>/claude-pilot-suite.git
ln -s "$(pwd)/claude-pilot-suite/rules" ~/your-project/.claude/rules-pilot
ln -s "$(pwd)/claude-pilot-suite/skills/haiku-pilot" ~/your-project/.claude/skills/haiku-pilot
ln -s "$(pwd)/claude-pilot-suite/skills/sonnet-pilot" ~/your-project/.claude/skills/sonnet-pilot

# Then update your project's CLAUDE.md to @-import the rules:
# @.claude/rules-pilot/core.md
# @.claude/rules-pilot/subagent-strategy.md
# @.claude/rules-pilot/context-management.md
# @.claude/rules-pilot/output-discipline.md
# @.claude/rules-pilot/haiku-pilot.md
# @.claude/rules-pilot/sonnet-pilot.md

See examples/CLAUDE.md.template for a complete example.

Customization required

This suite is a starter pack. Two files require workspace-specific customization:

1. `rules/core.md` § Production Safety Red Line

The default text uses abstract markers ("whatever your workspace's production markers are"). Replace with concrete markers for your stack:

Branch: main / production / master
Namespace: prod / production
Project ID prefix: *-prod / prod-*
IaC workspace: production / prod
Environment variable: ENV=production

2. `rules/subagent-strategy.md` § Sub-Agent Dispatch Table

The default table uses generic agent names (researcher, implementer, test-writer, etc.). Replace with the agents in your .claude/agents/ directory.

If you don't have specialized agents, the general-purpose agent (always available) accepts a model override and works as a fallback.

What this is NOT

Not a model selector: this suite assumes you already have access to Haiku 4.5, Sonnet 4.6, and Opus 4.7 via Claude Code. It doesn't change which models are available.
Not a billing tool: the cost claims are calculated from public pricing; actual savings depend on cache hit rate, input/output ratio, and your task mix. Use a separate cost-tracking tool to measure real savings.
Not a code reviewer: the Self-Review Loop dispatches quick-code-reviewer if you have one; otherwise the loop is just a git diff --stat checklist.

Compatibility with other Claude Code skills

output-discipline.md (included): plain-text formatting baseline; both pilot SKILLs reference it.

Acknowledgments

AgentOpt research (arxiv 2604.06296)
Augment Code AGENTS.md evaluation (2026-04)
Anthropic Claude Code conventions (AGENTS.md cross-tool root manifest)
4-iteration internal benchmark (5/3 baseline → v1 mode-declaration → v2 asymmetric → v3 symmetric)

Originally part of cc-workspace — extracted as portable plugin pack for community use.

Contributing

Issues / PRs welcome:

Workspace adaptation walk-throughs (different stacks: Rails / Django / Next.js / Go / etc.)
Updated cost calculations (when Anthropic pricing changes)
New benchmark data points (if you A/B test the suite vs full-Opus)
Bug reports with reproducible task transcripts

License: MIT (see LICENSE).