The strong model's premium, on tap — without the manual clutch.
A Claude Code skill. An automatic transmission is low-effort but "slower" than a manual; a paddle-shift automatic is the fix — clutchless auto for most of the drive, a paddle on the wheel you flick for the corner where the gear matters. Manual performance, zero manual labor.
Agentic translation: extracting a strong model's optional upside usually costs you manual labor — critiquing, re-briefing, "you fell short, do it properly." That's the clutch. paddle-shift removes it:
- Ship a complete, correct baseline on auto — everything required for correctness, the stated ask, and the normal duty of care (tests, validation, error handling).
- Surface a short (≤3) menu of optional, high-leverage upgrades that sit above that baseline — each grounded in an observable value/risk, cost-labeled, ranked.
- You flick the ones worth it. One word each. No re-brief.
- The baseline is complete first, always. Anything required for correctness is baseline — never an optional paddle. Burying a needed fix in the menu (so the result "looks done") is the cardinal anti-pattern.
- The menu is a proposal, not an oracle. It's model-authored, so your flick sets priority among what was surfaced — not truth or completeness. The baseline bar, not the menu, is what guarantees the floor.
- The empty menu is a success. "Nothing above baseline is worth your time here" is a first-class output. Often the real edge isn't a menu item at all — it's fewer bugs and sharper judgement folded straight into the baseline.
Copy the paddle-shift/ directory into your skills location (~/.claude/skills/ for user scope, or a project's .claude/skills/). Invoke with /paddle or phrases like "what else you got" / "give me the high-leverage options" after a delivered result.
See SKILL.md — mechanism, the baseline bar, the narrow plan-time exception, guardrails, and anti-patterns.
See EXAMPLE.md — this skill applied to its own repo (baseline, the menu it produced, and how a confabulated paddle got killed by verification).
See LICENSE.