Tier system
bassclef ships at three tiers — lite, standard, pro. Pick the tier that matches your keys and your appetite.
Use this when
You are picking which tier to install, or you are hitting a wall with your current tier ("I want /pick-luminaries but it says API key required").
Skip this when
You are on lite and it is working. There is no rush to upgrade.
The three tiers
| Tier | Contains | Requires | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| lite | Starter frame — around 30 skills + 16 rules + 20 hooks | Nothing — works offline | Free |
| standard | Full vocabulary + single LLM call skills | ANTHROPIC_API_KEY | Anthropic API usage |
| pro | Full + Voyage embedding shortlist for skill picking | ANTHROPIC_API_KEY + VOYAGE_API_KEY | Anthropic + Voyage usage |
What lite gets you
Lite is the starter tier. Ships:
- Tightest 3 (
/riff,/launch,/build) - Starter 7 (
/sprint,/whereami,/session-end,/verify,/kiss,/luminary,/lean-canvas) - Session-lifecycle skills (
/session-log,/session-end, etc.) - Around 20 hooks that fire mechanically at session boundaries
- 16 rules that load automatically into every session
Lite works entirely offline. No API keys needed. Skills that would
need an LLM fall back to deterministic stubs — for example,
/pick-luminaries returns a fixed shortlist rather than a
semantically-ranked one.
What standard adds
Standard adds the skills that need a single LLM call to work well:
/pick-luminaries— semantic ranking of the full luminary catalog/interpret-input— LLM-assisted intent extraction from paragraphs/howdoi— LLM-ranked search over skills + rules for adopter goals- All variant-generation skills operating at real quality
Standard needs ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in your environment.
What pro adds
Pro adds the Voyage embedding shortlist layer:
/pick-luminaries— embedding-first shortlist + LLM-judge re-rank/manifest-align— cosine grid across personas and stages
Pro needs ANTHROPIC_API_KEY + VOYAGE_API_KEY.
Picking a tier
Start on lite. Upgrade to standard when a skill you want says "API
key required" and you decide the cost is worth it. Upgrade to pro
when you notice /pick-luminaries returning matches that feel
mechanical.
Most adopters run lite for weeks before upgrading. Some never do.
Changing tier
Edit .bassclef-source.json:
{
"tier": "standard"
}Restart your Claude Code session. bassclef pulls the tier-specific manifest and rewires the symlinks.
Related
- Substrate config — the full schema
- Auto-update behavior — how new versions arrive