How much overhead does this actually add? I don't want ceremony for a one-line fix.

[fredcallagan]

Arness auto-detects complexity and selects a ceremony tier:

• Swift — minimal overhead. Inline assessment, planning, execution, and review in a single session. Suitable for bug fixes, small changes, and one-liners.
• Standard — adds a proper spec and structured plan. Used for features and multi-file changes.
• Thorough — full spec with edge cases, detailed plan with dependencies, multi-phase execution with parallel agents. Reserved for large or risky changes.

You can override the tier manually. For a quick fix, running /arn-planning will recognise the scope and keep things lean. The process scales down just as much as it scales up.

On token usage: swift mode is comparable to a thorough Claude Code conversation. Standard and thorough modes spawn specialist subagents (planner, executor, reviewer, test specialist) which each consume their own context. The tradeoff is repeatable process and traceable artifacts — use swift for small changes and reserve thorough for features that warrant the rigour.