v3.44.0

# RuFlo 3.44.0: the agent picker gets fixed on your machine, and gets measured

**Released 23 September 2026.** Upgrade:

```sh
npx ruflo@latest --version    # should print: ruflo v3.44.0
```

---

## The short version

- **The word-matching fix from 3.43.0 now reaches your computer.** The file that picks agents for your prompts was never updated after it was first installed. It now updates itself.
- **A new, optional, smarter agent picker** uses a real language model instead of comparing spelling. It's off by default. Turn it on with one setting.
- **We built a test to decide which picker should be the default**, and ran it. The honest result: none of the new options met the bar yet, so the default stays as it is. The numbers are below.

---

## 1. Your installed agent picker now updates itself

Every time you type a prompt in Claude Code, RuFlo's hook suggests which kind of agent should handle it. It does this with a small file, `router.js`, in `~/.claude/helpers/`.

3.43.0 fixed a bug where it matched parts of words: "review the la**test** issues" went to the *tester* because "latest" contains "test". **But the fix never reached anyone.** `router.js` was written once, when RuFlo was first set up, and upgrades never replaced it. On the maintainer's own machine, it was from April.

**Now `router.js` is one of the signed files RuFlo keeps up to date.** The next time you run any `ruflo` command, it checks the file against a cryptographically signed list and replaces it if it's out of date:

| Prompt | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| "sync and review latest issues" | tester | reviewer |
| "are we uing typesafe" (typo) | frontend-dev (because of "ui") | coder |
| "write unit tests for the auth module" | tester | tester |

*(ADR-389)*

## 2. Optional: a picker that understands meaning

RuFlo also has a second, "semantic" picker (`hooks route`). Until now it compared **spelling patterns**, not meaning. That's why it still thought "latest" looked like "test".

RuFlo already ships a real language model (MiniLM) for its memory search. 3.44.0 lets the picker use it too:

```sh
export CLAUDE_FLOW_ROUTER_EMBEDDER=minilm
npx ruflo hooks route --task "fix the login crash"
#  default picker: tester  ✗
#  with minilm:    coder   ✓
```

It costs about 5 extra milliseconds per prompt, plus a one-time model load of about 0.3 seconds. If the model isn't available, it quietly uses the old method and tells you so in its output (`embedder=hash`). *(ADR-390)*

## 3. How we decided what the default should be

Instead of guessing, we built a test (ADR-391):

- **197 realistic requests**, the kind people really type, each labelled with the right agent. A third are deliberately tricky ("the author field is missing in the prefix list" is a coding job, not an auth one).
- **Labelled blind.** The person doing the labelling never saw what any picker chose.
- **Frozen.** The list is locked with a checksum, so it can't be quietly adjusted later.

Then we ran four pickers on the same held-out 113 requests:

| Picker | Got it right | Time per prompt (95th percentile) |
|---|---|---|
| Current default | **26%** | 1.1 ms |
| With the language model (new option above) | **36%** | 6.2 ms |
| typesafe, basic | 27% | 1.2 ms |
| typesafe, with a model | 29% (44% before its safety gate) | 8.3 ms |

**The rule for changing the default** was set *before* running the test: more than 2 points more accurate, no new required download, and no more than 5% slower. The language-model option is clearly more accurate (+10 points) but is 5 ms slower, which breaks the "5% slower" rule because the current picker only takes 1 ms. So **the default did not change**, and the rule was not bent to make it pass.

**What the test taught us** (these are the next steps):

1. **The picker can't give the right answer for about 30% of requests.** It has no category for "researcher", "reviewer" or "not an engineering task at all". Adding those will probably help more than any model change.
2. **The speed rule should probably be an absolute limit** (say, under 10 ms), not "5% slower than 1 ms". That's a decision for the maintainers, recorded in the ADR, and not changed quietly here.
3. **The typesafe picker is the most accurate when it answers (44%)**, but its "am I sure?" check is too strict and lets it answer only 6% of the time. That needs tuning.

## Also fixed

- A test for the optional typesafe picker had been failing on the main branch since 3.43.0. It expected the old "latest → tester" mistake. It now checks the right thing.

## How this release was checked

- Every required release test passed:
  - codex 241
  - security 583
  - federation 640
  - 121 CLI tests, including all new router tests
- The five signed helper files were verified against the signed list.
- The packed release was installed into an empty folder and tested:
  - A deliberately out-of-date `router.js` was replaced after one `ruflo` command, and it stopped sending "latest" to the tester.
  - The language-model option picked "coder" for "fix the login crash", where the default picks "tester".

## Full details

- ADRs: 389 (keep the picker updated), 390 (language-model option), 391 (the test and its results): `v3/docs/adr/`
- The test set and the script to re-run it: `v3/@claude-flow/cli/benchmarks/router/`
- Pull request: #3410


Also published as a gist: https://gist.github.com/ruvnet/6ad4931d63360b0945ab148ad609e5d5

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