preflight — enforce prefer-local, automatically

The gap this closes: the optimizations (local routing, prompt improvement, skill search) are opt-in, so a fresh prompt — especially after an update or from another dev/agent — bypasses them. Enforcement that doesn't depend on the model remembering:

1. Committed policy (.botte/policy.md)

The shared source of truth every dev and agent reads: default to local for cheap work, escalate only hard reasoning, improve big prompts, run /checkup after updates, budget. Commit it so multi-dev / multi-agent stays consistent.

from skills.preflight import policy
policy.write_default(project)          # idempotent
policy.ensure_agents_pointer(project)  # links AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md to it

2. Preflight hook (every turn, ~0 cost)

A UserPromptSubmit hook that, before the expensive model sees the prompt, injects: the prefer-local rule, the top relevant skills (lexical find_skills, 0 tokens), and an improve_prompt nudge for big/ambiguous requests. Crash-proof (a hook must never block you) and fast (no LLM call).

echo '{"prompt":"classify these tickets","cwd":"."}' | python -m skills.preflight.hook

The deployer wires it automatically into .claude/settings.json:

{"hooks": {"UserPromptSubmit": [{"hooks": [
  {"type": "command", "command": "python -m skills.preflight.hook"}]}]}}

Install

python -m skills.bootstrap.cli <project> writes the policy, wires the hook and points AGENTS.md at the policy — all non-destructively. Works in any harness with a pre-prompt hook (Claude Code today); the hook script is standalone.

Related: [[bootstrap]] (installs this), [[checkup]] (the canonical audit), [[skill_finder]], [[prompt_improver]], [[auto_router]].