models: gpt-5.6-sol is the default; decommission gpt-5.4-pro and older

[espenale]

What & why

InitialForce model policy (Espen, 2026-07-17): gpt-5.6-sol is the default oracle, and gpt-5.4-pro and everything older are decommissioned (removed from the OpenAI model list so they can't be selected).

@oysteinkrog — you MOD this fork (you added the 5.5/5.6-sol/terra/luna line), so flagging for your review before it goes live fleet-wide.

Changes

• config.py — DEFAULT_MODEL fallback "auto" → "gpt-5.6-sol". Set DEFAULT_MODEL=auto (env/.env) to restore per-task auto-selection.
• .env.example — DEFAULT_MODEL=auto → gpt-5.6-sol (new deployments default correctly). Note: an existing local .env with DEFAULT_MODEL=auto still overrides — each machine updates its own .env (I've done mine).
• conf/openai_models.json — removed 16 models: gpt-5.4-pro, gpt-5.4, gpt-5.3-codex, gpt-5.2-pro, gpt-5.2, gpt-5.1-codex, gpt-5.1-codex-mini, gpt-5, gpt-5-mini, gpt-5-nano, gpt-5-codex, gpt-4.1, o3, o3-mini, o3-pro, o4-mini. Kept the current generation: gpt-5.5, gpt-5.5-pro, gpt-5.6-sol, gpt-5.6-terra, gpt-5.6-luna. Gemini / xAI / other providers untouched.
• .claude/CLAUDE.md — startup-guidance model examples updated off the decommissioned names.

Safety / verification

• No PAL Python hardcodes a removed model name (grep-verified across src/), so nothing in the server breaks.
• conf/openai_models.json is valid JSON; config.py imports and resolves; gpt-5.6-sol is present in the kept list.
• The diff on the model file is deletions-only (kept entries byte-unchanged).

The one behavior change to weigh

The config.py default flips from auto (Claude picks per task) to fixed gpt-5.6-sol. If you'd rather keep auto-mode as the default and only prune the model list, drop the config.py/.env.example hunks. And adjust the decommission boundary if you want to keep, say, the codex line or o-series.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[oysteinkrog]

None of this is strictly necessary..
When the server is installed on a machine there needs to be proper .env/configuration set no matter what. If we are going to customize default .env I think that might be a good idea but I would strongly recommend also disabling some of the tools which are not really needed and take up context.