MechanismArticle
In a hybrid AI workflow, cheap local models should handle high-volume scanning while expensive frontier models like Claude Code handle judgment calls.
Alex Finn's security scanning setup pairs a cheap local model that scans code every 20 minutes with Claude Code, which reviews findings once a day to judge what's real. ✦ AI generated
Alex Finn · Lenny's Newsletter · 2026-07-13 · original ↗
A local model (GLM 5.2) scans code every 20 minutes and dumps findings into a Markdown file. Claude Code checks that report once a day and decides what's real and worth fixing. The local model does the volume work cheaply; the frontier model does the judgment work precisely. Trying to run Claude Code every 20 minutes instead would cost thousands a month.
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In practice · 2
Implementation work rarely needs the top-tier model, so coding tasks should be spawned as subagents with a model override (Sonnet for substantive implementation, Haiku for trivial/mechanical edits), while judgment, review, and synthesis stay with the main loop.Claude · Simon Willison's Weblog · conf 70%Anthropic's own product team already tells enterprise customers to run cheap models like Sonnet and Haiku by default and only escalate to the flagship model when tasks get too hard, which is model routing driven by the customer.Pash · The Cognitive Revolution · conf 60%