diff --git a/plugin/templates/skills/subagent-orchestration/SKILL.md b/plugin/templates/skills/subagent-orchestration/SKILL.md
index c8417a6..576baac 100644
--- a/plugin/templates/skills/subagent-orchestration/SKILL.md
+++ b/plugin/templates/skills/subagent-orchestration/SKILL.md
@@ -9,6 +9,15 @@ description: >
 
 # Subagent & orchestration guidelines
 
+## Don't delegate what a command answers
+
+Before spawning anything, ask whether a grep, one shell command, or reading one file answers it.
+If so, do that — a subagent costs its whole tool baseline plus a briefing, to return what a
+single call would have. Delegate for a reason you can name: output you won't need in your own
+context again, independent work that genuinely runs in parallel, or a fresh perspective on
+something you've already formed an opinion about. Checking a claim against a handful of PRs or
+issues is a lookup, not a fleet.
+
 ## Right-size the model and effort
 
 Default to a **mid-tier model at medium effort**. Escalate to a larger model or higher effort only
@@ -29,6 +38,11 @@ tokens per agent" — token cost is a real constraint.
 Model names change — pick by capability tier, not version. When unsure, start at mid and escalate
 only with a stated reason.
 
+Set the model explicitly on every spawn. A spawn with no model inherits its parent's, and a nested
+spawn inherits that again — so one top-tier orchestrator silently makes its entire subtree
+top-tier, including the mechanical lookups. Most of an over-spent fleet is usually spawned by
+other subagents, not by you.
+
 ## Restrict each subagent's tools
 
 Every MCP tool schema a subagent loads is billed as a cache **write** on first use (~12.5× the
@@ -36,6 +50,11 @@ read price). A file-editing agent that never calls Slack / Jira / cloud / browse
 load their schemas — give it a minimal tool list. This cuts the per-spawn baseline from ~100K+
 tokens to a fraction, every spawn.
 
+The default is the failure: a spawn that names no tool list inherits every tool the parent has,
+MCP servers included, so restriction has to be explicit on every spawn. Name the few tools the
+task needs — a web-research agent needs fetch and search, not a GitHub or Slack MCP — and give it
+nothing else.
+
 ## Brief each subagent to stand alone
 
 A subagent starts fresh and its final report is **not** shown to the user. So: