Frugal — Development skill for Claude Code

frugal

A Claude Code plugin for triage-first multi-agent orchestration. It decides on every task whether a multi-agent run is worth the 3 to 10x token cost, asks you only when the call is genuinely unclear, picks orchestrator or advisor shape, and routes each kind of work to a specific model. The frontier model keeps planning, review, and judgment; cheaper models do the reading, coding, and test runs.

The layout follows [pilotfish](https://github.com/Nanako0129/pilotfish): one file per role, a compact policy injected at session start, and a plugin that installs and uninstalls cleanly per project or globally. The decision rules come from Anthropic's [multi-agent guidance](https://claude.com/blog/building-multi-agent-systems-when-and-how-to-use-them), the [advisor tool](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agents-and-tools/tool-use/advisor-tool) and [plan big, execute small](https://github.com/anthropics/claude-cookbooks/blob/main/managed_agents/CMA_plan_big_execute_small.ipynb) patterns, and the measured results in [Optimizing for cost and intelligence](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/models/optimizing-for-cost-and-intelligence).

Install

Add the repo as a marketplace once, then install per scope:

claude plugin marketplace add https://github.com/rlucas92/frugal
claude plugin install frugal@frugal --scope user      # every project
claude plugin install frugal@frugal --scope project   # this project only, shared via .claude/settings.json
claude plugin install frugal@frugal --scope local     # this project only, gitignored

Working from a local clone instead, pass its path to `marketplace add`. To try it for one session without installing:

claude --plugin-dir /path/to/frugal/plugin

Disable, re-enable, or remove:

claude plugin disable frugal
claude plugin enable frugal
claude plugin uninstall frugal --scope user

The plugin depends on [ponytail](https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail), so installing or e