Understand the workflow.
Routine operations depend on precise handoffs: fill arguments, normalize state, classify a request, or repair a malformed call. A fluent answer is not enough if the next system cannot use it.
Define the quality bar.
Treat the parser, schema, retry policy, and held-out examples as part of the route. Measure task performance and serving behavior separately so a faster response does not conceal an incorrect one.
Improve the route.
Tighten prompts, output controls, token caps, and parsing before changing weights. Then compare candidate models against the same output contract and review the quality tradeoff.
Keep frontier capability.
Keep frontier capability for exceptions and unresolved cases. Repeated structured transformations can be evaluated separately from those harder decisions.