Delegation Core

Delegation Core Framework

Overview

A method for deciding when and how to delegate tasks to external LLM services. Core principle: delegate execution, retain high-level reasoning.

Default Posture

Delegation is on. Declining it is the step that takes a decision.

Any conjure operation, mission phase, or workflow that reaches eligible work delegates it without being asked. Eligible means the work is execution rather than reasoning, which the philosophy below defines and modules/task-assessment.md classifies. An operator who wants delegation off says so once, in one of the two places under Declining Delegation.

This inverts the earlier framing, which listed the occasions on which to delegate and so made delegation something a caller had to remember. The occasions were correct and are now the exception list instead.

Keep Local

Delegation stops at the boundary the philosophy draws. Keep the work local when any of these hold:

• The task is reasoning: architecture, design, trade-offs, judgment.
• The prompt or context carries a secret, a credential, or data that should not leave the machine.
• The task needs iteration with the operator turn by turn.
• Correctness cannot be validated after the fact.

The first is the standing exception and covers most of what Claude does. The rest are the red flags modules/task-assessment.md already lists.

Declining Delegation

Two switches, environment over file.

CONJURE_DELEGATION accepts off, 0, false, no and their opposites, in any case. Setting it to an on spelling re-enables delegation that the config file turned off, so the narrower scope wins. A disabled delegator returns a result whose fallback_reason is delegation_disabled and spawns nothing, so opting out costs nothing.

When No Provider Answers

smart_delegate works down the registry order and returns the first real answer. A provider that is missing, unauthenticated, failing, or answering with an empty stdout is recorded and the chain moves on.

When it reaches the end, it returns a result with fallback_reason set to providers_exhausted and an attempts trail naming what each provider did. That result is the instruction to do the work locally. Read it, say which providers were tried and why none answered, and then do the task yourself. Do not treat it as an error to report and stop on: a machine with no CLI installed is the ordinary case for this default, not a fault.

When the operator wants providers answering rather than falling back, modules/provider-onboarding.md carries the per-provider steps and the failure shapes that do not look like authentication problems. Start with make -C plugins/conjure delegate-doctor.

Philosophy

Delegate execution, retain reasoning. Claude handles architecture, strategy, design, and review. External LLMs perform data processing, pattern extraction, bulk operations, and summarization.

Delegation Flow

1. Task Assessment: Classify task by complexity and context size.
2. Suitability Evaluation: Check prerequisites and service fit.
3. Handoff Planning: Formulate request and document plan.
4. Execution & Integration: Run delegation, validate, and integrate results.

Quick Decision Matrix

High Complexity: Architecture, design decisions, trade-offs, creative problem solving.

Low Complexity: Pattern counting, bulk extraction, boilerplate generation, summarization.

Detailed Workflow Steps

1. Task Assessment (delegation-core:task-assessed)

Classify the task:

• See modules/task-assessment.md for classification criteria.
• Use token estimates to determine thresholds.
• Apply the decision matrix.

Exit Criteria: Task classified with complexity level, context size, and delegation recommendation.

2. Suitability Evaluation (delegation-core:delegation-suitability)

Verify prerequisites:

• See modules/handoff-patterns.md for checklist.
• Evaluate cost-benefit ratio using modules/cost-estimation.md.
• Check for red flags (security, real-time iteration).

Exit Criteria: Service authenticated, quotas verified, cost justified.

3. Handoff Planning (delegation-core:handoff-planned)

Create a delegation plan:

• See modules/handoff-patterns.md for request template.
• Document service, command, input context, expected output.
• Define validation method.

Exit Criteria: Delegation plan documented.