Size the run before you spend it: how strong a model, and how hard it should think.

modelchk is read-only and advisory. From one assessment it sizes the two dials that set a model's per-run cognitive spend — capability tier and reasoning effort. It does not choose, route, switch, pin, spawn, set, or require any concrete model or level.

Goal

From a single risk-and-complexity read, recommend two coordinates.

Capability tier — the cheapest sufficient class of mind:

fast for local, mechanical, reversible work with cheap, complete verification.
standard for ordinary repo-grounded reasoning, multi-step drafting, normal coding, and conventional documentation or skill work.
frontier for architecture, high ambiguity, safety/security/privacy/data-loss risk, release-critical review, cross-domain scope, or work where one wrong assumption wastes a large run.

Reasoning effort — how hard that mind should deliberate. modelchk recommends the effort intent; resolving it to the active model's actual level — like choosing the model itself — is the executor's step, not this skill's. From least to most deliberation: