Claude Code Skills Have a Model Field. Here's Why You Should Be Using It.

I've been building Claude Code skills for a few weeks. Writing the prompts, testing them, tweaking descriptions so Claude knows when to use which one. Felt pretty on top of it. Then I got annoyed that every skill was running on the same model — my fastest, most expensive one — even for tasks like "open the dashboard" or "run git status." So I went looking for a way to change that. I opened the source code. There are 15 frontmatter fields in a Claude Code skill. I was using 3. The Fields That Actually Matter Most people write a skill like this: --- name: my-skill description: Does the thing. --- That's fine. It works. But you're leaving a lot on the table. Here are the fields that change runtime behavior — not just metadata: model — Which brain runs this skill model: haiku Claude Code actually switches models when running this skill. Not "uses a cheaper mode" — it calls a different model entirely. So a skill that opens a dashboard, commits code, or fills a form? That's haiku work. A ski