clawdbot/docs/token-use.md

summary, read_when

summary	read_when
How Clawdbot builds prompt context and reports token usage + costs	Explaining token usage, costs, or context windows Debugging context growth or compaction behavior

Token use & costs

Clawdbot tracks tokens, not characters. Tokens are model-specific, but most OpenAI-style models average ~4 characters per token for English text.

How the system prompt is built

Clawdbot assembles its own system prompt on every run. It includes:

• Tool list + short descriptions
• Skills list (only metadata; instructions are loaded on demand with read)
• Self-update instructions
• Workspace + bootstrap files (AGENTS.md, SOUL.md, TOOLS.md, IDENTITY.md, USER.md, HEARTBEAT.md, BOOTSTRAP.md when new)
• Time (UTC + user timezone)
• Reply tags + heartbeat behavior
• Runtime metadata (host/OS/model/thinking)

See the full breakdown in System Prompt.

What counts in the context window

Everything the model receives counts toward the context limit:

• System prompt (all sections listed above)
• Conversation history (user + assistant messages)
• Tool calls and tool results
• Attachments/transcripts (images, audio, files)
• Compaction summaries and pruning artifacts
• Provider wrappers or safety headers (not visible, but still counted)

How to see current token usage

Use these in chat:

• /status → emoji‑rich status card with the session model, context usage, last response input/output tokens, and estimated cost (API key only).
• /cost on|off → appends a per-response usage line to every reply.
  • Persists per session (stored as responseUsage).
  • OAuth auth hides cost (tokens only).

Other surfaces:

• TUI/Web TUI: /status + /cost are supported.
• CLI: clawdbot status --usage and clawdbot providers list show provider quota windows (not per-response costs).

Cost estimation (when shown)

Costs are estimated from your model pricing config:

models.providers.<provider>.models[].cost

These are USD per 1M tokens for input, output, cacheRead, and cacheWrite. If pricing is missing, Clawdbot shows tokens only. OAuth tokens never show dollar cost.

Tips for reducing token pressure

• Use /compact to summarize long sessions.
• Trim large tool outputs in your workflows.
• Keep skill descriptions short (skill list is injected into the prompt).
• Prefer smaller models for verbose, exploratory work.

See Skills for the exact skill list overhead formula.