The task profile is search tool invocation + JSON extraction — not
reasoning or creative work. Mini models handle this equally well at
3-5x lower cost per call.
OpenAI changes:
- Rename is_mainline_openai_model -> is_search_capable_model
- Include mini variants (gpt-5-mini, gpt-4.1-mini) in candidate pool
- Exclude gpt-4o-mini (no domain filtering) and nano (no web_search)
- select_openai_model() now prefers mini within newest generation
- OPENAI_FALLBACK_MODELS: gpt-5-mini first, mainline as last resort
- MODEL_FALLBACK_ORDER: same mini-first ordering
xAI changes:
- Switch alias from grok-4-1-fast (reasoning) to
grok-4-1-fast-non-reasoning — same token price, faster response,
no wasted reasoning tokens for structured extraction
Cost per Reddit search call: ~$0.015 (gpt-5-mini) vs ~$0.044 (gpt-4.1)
Jeffrey Sperling
588cff3e00