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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.

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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.

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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)

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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).

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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.

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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.