One of the most common way to save cost with LLMs right now is to have a smarter model do the planning and have implementation subagents using a less intelligent model.
Given that the Projects feature heavily aligns with the concept of planner/worker model it’d be a really nice addition to be able to choose a planner and subagent model per project or for all projects.
I love using Grok for execution but I think one of its biggest weaknesses is that it’s bad at high level stuff and can’t really communicate clearly at that level.
I think it’d be a no brainer addition to make this new feature even better
Hi @raphael-yapla Thank you for the post. This is a useful planner and worker pattern for Projects. There isn’t a separate default worker model setting today. The model selected for a project is the coordinator’s model, and workers inherit it by default unless the coordinator explicitly chooses another available model.
For now, an instruction in your project prompt or rules can help:
“Start every worker agent using [worker model] unless I say otherwise.”
This is guidance rather than an enforced setting, so it isn’t guaranteed.
In the new Projects feature, spawned worker agents always start on Claude Opus High, even when I’m running the orchestrator on a cheaper model. That burns through included usage on tasks that don’t need a premium model.
What we lost / what’s broken:
No setting to choose the default model for Projects worker agents
Spawned agents default to Claude Opus High instead of inheriting the orchestrator’s model
Settings → Models / Cloud Agents default model don’t seem to apply to Projects workers
Usage dashboard shows Opus runs I never explicitly chose
For routine implementation work, I want workers on Composer, Grok, or whatever I picked — not Opus on every spawn.
Current behavior: Projects orchestrator can run on my chosen model, but each spawned agent still launches on Claude Opus High with no picker or “inherit parent model” option.
Request:
Default Projects worker agents to inherit the orchestrator’s model
Add a Projects → Default worker model setting (or per-project override)
Respect disabled models in Settings → Models for spawned agents
I’ve had the exact same issue too. Worker agents start on Opus 5 if I pick anything else than Grok on the orchestrator model. I’ve went and disabled Opus from my model selection and asked the orchestrator to remember to stick to Grok for worker agents, it made a preference.md file, hopefully it will help.