Nobody is wrong: every choice is a subscription, a habit, or a client that dictates the tool.

 architect
     │  designs, delegates, triages
     ▼
 builder ×N ──► blind reviewer ‖ ui-reviewer
                      │  sees only task + diff
                      ▼
                   tester

Fixed order, blind review, an honest builder report: three rules that in a month saved us more than they cost.

The problem: delegation is Claude Code's Agent tool, and the roles are files in Claude's format. Outside it, the pipeline does not exist.

• Work from anywhere: the Claude desktop app, VS Code, Cursor, and the CLIs — Claude Code, opencode, Copilot CLI.
• Delegate to any backend: Claude, DeepSeek via opencode/OpenRouter, Cursor, Copilot, or a bare API call.
• Keep the three rules: blind review, honest report, fixed order.
• A spending cap — that can be switched off.
• N builders in parallel without treading on each other.

claustrum run <role> --brief-file <md> [--cast <name>] [--json]
claustrum cast new | questions | create | list | use
claustrum coordinate --cast <name> --issues 12,13
claustrum sync [--only claude,opencode] [--global] [--check]
claustrum backends list | doctor
claustrum jobs list | show | logs | clean
claustrum mcp                      # MCP server on stdio

Single binary, .NET 10 NativeAOT: Windows, macOS, Linux.
No runtime to install. ~3 MB.

The assistant types one line in the terminal and waits for it to finish. Works in every host today, with nothing installed in the IDE.

The assistant calls delegate the way it would call a calculator. More convenient, but the host must speak MCP — and by now they all do.

• prepares the instructions for the delegated agent: who it is, what it may touch, how it must report
• photographs the repository with git
• launches the agent on the chosen harness and waits
• photographs again: the difference is what it really changed
• reads the final report and hands back the receipt

Like the sheet you leave for a contractor. Four fixed lines, always the same:

Whoever wrote the plan may add a "Context" line. The blind reviewer may not: its copy of the order has no such line, by construction.

RECEIPT · job 20260912-1403
outcome .......... success
who .............. builder on DeepSeek V4 Flash, via opencode
files changed .... 2    ← git says so, not the agent
   + Backends/OpencodeBackend.cs
   ~ Backends/Registry.cs
the agent's report
   what I did ......... added the opencode backend
   to be tested ....... reading the JSONL events
   decided alone ...... nothing, the sheet was enough
   shaky .............. the event names are unconfirmed
cost ............. $0.012 · 41 s

In reality it is JSON, for machines. This is the translation — but the lines are exactly these.

{ "architect":     { "mode": "host" },
  "builder":       { "model": "opencode:openrouter/deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro",
                     "max_parallel": 3 },
  "code-reviewer": { "model": "claude:opus", "tier": "xhigh" },
  "ui-reviewer":   null,                       ← not needed this time
  "tester":        { "model": "opencode:openrouter/deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash" },
  "budget_usd":    10 }                         ← null ⇒ no cap

The cast is a file, not a memory of the chat: it survives context compaction, it gets committed, it gets shared. Next morning /claustrum says "cast default found — use it, or recast?".

roles/builder/ROLE.md         neutral body, with {{tokens}}
roles/builder/role.json       tier → model class, permissions
roles/builder/parts/delegation.claude.md
roles/builder/parts/delegation.default.md
roles/_shared/house-rules.md   "AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md are law"
roles/_shared/report/builder.mdreport schema

The reviewer must see only the task and the diff. It used to be a sentence in the architect's prompt, entrusted to its discipline.

Now, for a role with blind: true, the runner refuses a brief containing ## Context, ## Plan, ## Rationale or a pasted claustrum-report block — exit 2, "blind role: brief carries rationale".

N builders in the same checkout overwrite each other. With max_parallel > 1 every job gets its own git worktree on a claustrum/<job> branch; the architect integrates by rebase, never a merge commit.

The parallel cap is a semaphore in the job manager, shared by CLI and MCP: a spawned architect that over-fans waits.

Accounted over the whole tree of jobs: a child that would exceed the remainder is refused with BudgetExceeded, not launched.

And it can be switched off: "budget_usd": null, or "no cap" in the questionnaire. When it is off, cast show prints budget: unlimited — the choice stays visible.

The agent you are talking to is the architect: it adopts the synced role and issues the delegations itself. Works in every host, uses the host's subscription. It is the normal case: you in chat, it calling delegate.

claustrum coordinate launches the architect too, headless, on the backend the cast chose — claude -p uses the Claude subscription — with the cast injected and Bash(claustrum *) allowed. The architect calls Claustrum recursively for builders, reviewers, tester.

The pipeline is the architect's prompt. Claustrum supplies the cast, the blind gate, the semaphore, the tree-wide budget, and progress through job_status. No state machine.