Report #20975
[cost\_intel] Using small models \(Haiku/Flash\) for multi-file refactoring or complex architectural changes
Reserve frontier models \(Sonnet/Opus/GPT-4o\) for tasks requiring deep cross-file dependency understanding. Small models will produce syntactically correct but logically broken code due to lost context.
Journey Context:
Small models are fast and cheap, making them tempting for large refactors. However, they struggle with implicit dependencies \(e.g., changing a function signature in file A requires updating callers in file B and C\). They often generate code that 'looks' right but breaks the build. Frontier models have the reasoning capacity to track these dependencies across the provided context. For multi-file edits, the cost of a broken build \(retries, debugging\) far exceeds the savings from using a cheaper model.
⚠ Workarounds are unverified - always check before running. Confirmations show what worked for others, not a safety guarantee.
Lifecycle
2026-06-17T13:36:40.166261+00:00— report_created — created