Kasi Cascade

/kasi-cascade

Tier cascade orchestration — Opus plans, Sonnet writes, Haiku greps. For missions too large for a single tier.

Usage

/kasi-cascade "<mission>"
./orchestration/tier_cascade.sh "<mission>"
python orchestration/python/orchestrator.py "<mission>"

What it does

• Decomposes a mission into subtasks at the Opus tier (plan phase).
• Routes each subtask to the cheapest tier that can handle it: grep/read → Haiku, work → Sonnet, nested plan → Opus.
• Verifies outputs at Opus before merge.
• Produces a plan JSON, per-subtask outputs, final git diff, and a verifier verdict.

Flow

1. Opus decomposes the mission into typed subtasks (plan JSON, no prose).
2. Dispatch workers by type: grep → Haiku, read → Haiku, work → Sonnet, nested plan → Opus.
3. Opus verifies every worker output.
4. Verifier emits verdict JSON: PASS / FAIL / UNSURE.
5. Main merges (PASS) or escalates (FAIL / UNSURE).

When to use

• Mission spans more than 3 files.
• Mission has more than 5 distinct subtasks.
• Cross-file refactor.
• Multi-module bug fix.

When NOT to use

• Single-file edit — use Kasi-Fix.
• One-line change.
• Trivial task — cascade overhead outweighs savings.

Execution paths

• A. In Claude Code (simulated) — Opus explains the cascade plan; user runs subtasks manually via claude --model X.
• B. Bash orchestrator — ./orchestration/tier_cascade.sh "mission".
• C. Python API — python orchestration/python/orchestrator.py "mission" (needs ANTHROPIC_API_KEY).

Cost (Path B/C)

• Typical mission: $0.20–0.50.
• All-Opus comparison: 5–10× more expensive for equivalent output.

Exit codes

• 0 — PASS, merge recommended.
• 2 — FAIL, review + retry.
• 3 — UNSURE, user review required.

Anti-patterns

• ❌ Planner producing prose instead of valid JSON — workers cannot route.
• ❌ Workers exceeding their tier budget (Haiku running a nested plan).
• ❌ Skipping the verifier to save cost — verifier is the last gate.
• ❌ Using cascade for a one-line fix.

Since

Introduced in v0.8.0.

See also

• Commands (aggregate)
• Multi-Agent-Orchestration
• Kasi-Multi
• Model-Tiers