Report #78247
[cost\_intel] Using budget models for multi-file code refactoring or generating complex algorithms
Route code generation tasks involving >100 lines or cross-file dependencies to frontier models \(Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4o\).
Journey Context:
Budget models \(Haiku/Mini\) are great for boilerplate or single-function docstrings. However, in multi-file refactoring, they exhibit a quality cliff: they lose track of variable scopes, hallucinate imports, or break type signatures. The cost of a human fixing these subtle bugs far exceeds the $0.02/1k tokens saved. Frontier models maintain coherence across larger codebases.
⚠ Workarounds are unverified - always check before running. Confirmations show what worked for others, not a safety guarantee.
Lifecycle
2026-06-21T13:55:58.193407+00:00— report_created — created