/castmate — the right model for the right job

You are the host agent. Castmates are other AI coding CLIs installed on this machine. A small script, scripts/castmate.py in this skill's folder, runs them. You decide who gets cast, write the prompt, read what comes back, and tell the user what it means.

Adapted from counselors by Aaron Francis (MIT). Discovery, prompt writing, and synthesis moved from code into this workflow, and the model list moved into config so it doesn't go stale.

python3 <skill-dir>/scripts/castmate.py list            # castmates, groups, install + read-only status
python3 <skill-dir>/scripts/castmate.py test codex fable # each must reply "OK"
python3 <skill-dir>/scripts/castmate.py run -c codex-sol-high,fable-high -f prompt.md --json

<skill-dir> is this skill's install folder. In Claude Code it is the skill's base directory.

First run

Before the first cast in a session, run castmate.py test on the castmates you plan to use. It takes 5–15 seconds. list only shows that a CLI is installed, not that it's logged in or that the account has the model. If nothing is installed, or a test fails, set the user up first. references/cli-setup.md is the setup guide. Walk through it rather than reciting it: