Cost-Aware Model Routing Policies for Multi-Agent Team Orchestration
Harness, a 6,800-star meta-skill that designs domain-specific agent teams, received a detailed issue asking for per-task model tiering because the framework forces the most expensive model onto every agent including mechanical QA and formatting roles. Multi-agent systems multiply inference spend by agent count, and none of the popular orchestration frameworks ship cost policies. Model-tier routing by task complexity is the missing budget control for agent teams.
Problem Statement
A team running a five-agent workflow today either hardcodes one premium model everywhere, overpaying 10x on mechanical subtasks, or hand-tunes per-agent model choices that rot as models and prices change monthly. The Harness issue spells out the want: QA static-analysis and documentation agents on cheaper tiers, orchestrators on premium, with the assignment maintained by policy rather than by editing templates.
The Idea
A model routing and budget policy layer for teams running multi-agent workflows who need each subtask matched to the cheapest model that meets its quality bar.
Why Now
Agent team patterns went mainstream in 2026 through skills and orchestration frameworks, and the cost structure became visible immediately: a Harness user documented that mechanical agents are forced onto Opus-class pricing for work a mid-tier model handles. Model menus now span two orders of magnitude in price, making routing the highest-leverage cost decision in any agent system.
Target User
Engineering teams operating multi-agent workflows in production and AI platform leads managing inference budgets
Target Market
LLM operations and cost management infrastructure
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