Token routing in practice (Day 1)
The fastest way to waste budget is to treat every request like it needs a premium model. In real operations, most turns are repetitive and low risk: formatting, summarizing, lightweight drafting, or synthesis.
A stronger pattern is routing by risk and ambiguity. Use lower-cost models for routine transforms. Escalate only when outcomes are irreversible, technically complex, or uncertain. This keeps quality where it matters and removes unnecessary spend from the baseline.
Add one more layer: local model offload for repetitive jobs that don’t require frontier reasoning. Combined with clear escalation gates, this gives a calm cost profile and steadier throughput.