Quartermaster Builder

A builder that stamps resource plans onto projects and keeps one global weekly Allocator honest — so a week of Claude usage is spent deliberately instead of discovered retroactively. It is the completion of the ramp-up initiative in Code/Projects/pushing limits.md (stalled 2026-06-10, closed 2026-08-20 by this package).

Why it exists

On 2026-08-20 a single 8-to-4 working day read 28% on the Fable weekly bar, against an intuition that last week's all-day parallel sessions had been far heavier. Transcript analysis showed the meter was right: usage is weighted tokens per model — not hours, not session count. Cache reads dominate the bill (context size multiplies every call), Fable weighs 2× Opus, and the week of 2026-08-13 finished with headroom only because fan-out work had accidentally shifted to Opus while Fable handled the hard parts. This package makes that accident deliberate.

What you get

Two layers, closed-loop against measured actuals:

• The Allocator (Code/Tools/Claude/Usage/Allocator.md) — one file owning the week's budget arithmetic: per-project shares, squeeze priorities, a machine-rendered burn dashboard, and a calibration ledger fitting the local cost proxy against the real meter.
• Per-project resource plans — task-class → model routing (Haiku → Sonnet → Opus → Fable), parallel-session choreography, session-hygiene rules, and a variance log. How much plan a project gets is set by its engagement tier (Line-item / Routed / Orchestrated) — the one knob, chosen in the interview.

The loop runs on three mechanisms: a nightly systemd timer snapshots token burn from local transcripts (deterministic, no Claude involvement); a SessionStart hook puts the week's remaining budget in front of every new session; and /qm-week runs the Thursday-11:00-ET rollover ritual — actuals vs plan, calibration, a proposed next week — and stops for approval. /qm-audit is the healer: birth gate, life checks, retrofit drain.

How to invoke

Say "quartermaster this project" (or "put X on a resource plan") — the agent reads the build protocol in this package and runs the interview. Weekly: /qm-week at rollover. Health: /qm-audit.

What it will never do

Write an allocation you haven't approved; fabricate a number (measured, or labeled estimate, or unknown); present the list-price proxy as the real meter; or contradict a project's own governance — plans route, they don't rule.