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Measurement · not a scoreboard

Token Burn

I run work across Claude Code, Codex, Hermes. Token usage isn't a leaderboard — it's a feedback loop for delegated intelligence: what work actually moved, whether the result got used, and whether the review burden was worth it. The hard part is honesty — you can't trust one token number across tools that count differently, so I keep three fidelity lanesseparate and never sum them into a single figure.

The three lanes (kept apart)
Exact tokens
695.3M
tokens · 1185 receipts

Counted by the provider. Hard numbers.

Measured activity
2.7K
ops · 66 receipts

Real ops (tool calls, runs) — not tokens.

Estimate band
40K–90K
tokens · 1 receipts

Best-guess ranges. Never precise.

Three numbers, three confidence levels. Adding them would invent precision that doesn't exist.

Usage over time · daily exact-token total
10M20M30M0Jan 25Mar 13Apr 29Jun 15Aug 1Sep 17
2026-01-25peak 23M tok/day · exact lane · linear scale · hover for daily total2026-09-17
Context-mode savings · a different axis
2.15 GB
raw bytes kept out of the model's context window — context hygiene, not spend
538.3M
saved tokens (≈ token-equiv)
Where the work runs · by tool
Claude Code446
Hermes default273
Gideon/Ollama271
Codex261
ChatGPT1

bars = receipt count per tool (any lane)

Exact-token weight · by model
claude-fable-5147.6M
claude-opus-5143.0M
OpenAI Codex97.3M
claude-opus-4-882.1M
claude-sonnet-572.7M
claude-fable-5-162.3M
gpt-5.521.5M
gpt-5.6-sol20.9M
claude-haiku-4-5-2025100118.0M
gideon:latest16.1M
claude-opus-4-76.6M
gpt-5.43.4M
anthropic2.3M
gpt-5.3-codex594K
gpt-5.6-luna529K
gpt-6-astra339K
gpt-5.2-codex20K
gideon2.1K

exact lane only · measured provider tokens

Per-agent burn · exact-token activity
Total
695.3M tok
Claude Code
532.4M tok
Hermes default
99.6M tok
Codex
47.2M tok
Gideon/Ollama
16.1M tok
lessmore · exact-token lane · shared log scale across agents

2026-01-25 → 2026-09-17 · Total plus one band per tool · log-scaled per day

Receipts · scrubbed
DateToolModelCategoryLaneValueOutcomeNext move
2026-09-17Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact1.1Kunrated
2026-09-17Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact14Kunrated
2026-09-17Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact9.6Kunrated
2026-09-17Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact886unrated
2026-09-17Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact182Kunrated
2026-09-17Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact10Kunrated
2026-09-17Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact243Kunrated
2026-09-17Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact579Kunrated
2026-09-17Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact1.0Munrated
2026-09-17Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact227Kunrated
2026-09-17Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact702Kunrated
2026-09-17Claude Codeclaude-haiku-4-5-20251001agent-codingexact84Kunrated
2026-09-17Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact446Kunrated
2026-09-17Hermes defaultOpenAI Codexagent-runtimeexact308Kusedmonitor
2026-09-16Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact10Kunrated
2026-09-16Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact461unrated
2026-09-16Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact285Kunrated
2026-09-16Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact17Kunrated
2026-09-16Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact132Kunrated
2026-09-16Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact514Kunrated
2026-09-16Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact4.6Munrated
2026-09-16Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact421Kunrated
2026-09-16Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact1.3Munrated
2026-09-16Claude Codeclaude-haiku-4-5-20251001agent-codingexact48Kunrated
2026-09-16Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact10.3Munrated
2026-09-16Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact628Kunrated
2026-09-16Hermes defaultOpenAI Codexagent-runtimeexact580Kusedmonitor
2026-09-15Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact9.6Kunrated
2026-09-15Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact410unrated
2026-09-15Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact18Kunrated
2026-09-15Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact291Kunrated
2026-09-15Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact16Kunrated
2026-09-15Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact1.3Munrated
2026-09-15Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact1.1Munrated
2026-09-15Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact113Kunrated
2026-09-15Claude Codeclaude-haiku-4-5-20251001agent-codingexact157Kunrated
2026-09-15Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact1.1Munrated
2026-09-15Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact2.1Munrated
2026-09-15Hermes defaultOpenAI Codexagent-runtimeexact556Kusedmonitor
2026-09-14Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact10.0Kunrated
2026-09-14Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact293Kunrated
2026-09-14Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact18Kunrated
2026-09-14Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact1.1Munrated
2026-09-14Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact704Kunrated
2026-09-14Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact940Kunrated
2026-09-14Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact142Kunrated
2026-09-14Claude Codeclaude-sonnet-5agent-codingexact46Kunrated
2026-09-14Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact121Kunrated
2026-09-14Claude Codeclaude-haiku-4-5-20251001agent-codingexact156Kunrated
2026-09-14Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact630Kunrated
2026-09-14Hermes defaultOpenAI Codexagent-runtimeexact527Kusedmonitor
2026-09-13Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact53Kunrated
2026-09-13Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact28Kunrated
2026-09-13Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact509unrated
2026-09-13Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact400unrated
2026-09-13Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact292Kunrated
2026-09-13Gideon/Ollamagideon:latestautomationexact19Kunrated
2026-09-13Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact1.5Munrated
2026-09-13Claude Codeclaude-opus-5agent-codingexact942Kunrated
2026-09-13Claude Codeclaude-fable-5-1agent-codingexact151Kunrated

Project, client and job detail are stripped at build time — only tool, model, generic category and outcome are shown. Snapshot generated 9/17/2026 · 2510 source receipts.