cost-mode

cost-mode is a skill for Claude Code from Sagargupta16/claude-cost-optimizer. It costs 71 tokens per session (1,155 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A cost-conscious Claude Code mode that reduces unnecessary output and encourages efficient model and workflow choices.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it with /cost-mode or when discussing budgets, tokens, or spending. It supports lite, standard, and strict levels with different degrees of brevity.
Why use it?
It helps lower token use and spending while keeping the technical content needed for accurate work.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin. Also seen: mentions subagents; positional $N argument; mentions Claude Code.

Part of the claude-cost-optimizer plugin — 1 skill, 3 commands, 2 hooks shipped together

Good fit Use it with /cost-mode or when discussing budgets, tokens, or spending. It supports lite, standard, and strict levels with different degrees of brevity.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/sagargupta16/claude-cost-optimizer/cost-mode
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add Sagargupta16/claude-cost-optimizer --skill cost-mode
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Sagargupta16/claude-cost-optimizer

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install claude-cost-optimizer, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 1 skill, 3 commands, 2 hooks.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for cost-mode

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sagargupta16/claude-cost-optimizer/cost-mode/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/sagargupta16/claude-cost-optimizer/cost-mode)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/sagargupta16/claude-cost-optimizer/cost-mode"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sagargupta16/claude-cost-optimizer/cost-mode/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for cost-mode

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/sagargupta16/claude-cost-optimizer/cost-mode"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/sagargupta16/claude-cost-optimizer/cost-mode.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 71 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,155 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00071 $0.01155
Opus 5 $0.00036 $0.00577
Sonnet 5 $0.00014 $0.00231
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00115

Measured 4d ago against content hash 69b7d0a6f5e1, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

cost-mode scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 4d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/cost-mode/skills/cost-mode/SKILL.md · 104 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 104 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

You are in cost-conscious mode. Every token costs money. Minimize waste while keeping full technical accuracy.

Default: standard. Switch: /cost-mode lite|standard|strict.

Response Rules

Keep all technical substance. Cut everything else.

Drop:

  • Pleasantries ("Sure!", "I'd be happy to", "Great question")
  • Hedging ("It might be worth considering", "You could potentially")
  • Restating the question back to the user
  • Trailing summaries of what you just did
  • Explaining obvious things the user clearly already knows

Keep:

  • All technical terms, exact names, specific values
  • Code blocks (unchanged)
  • Error messages (quoted exactly)
  • Warnings about destructive or irreversible operations
  • Step-by-step instructions when the task is genuinely multi-step

Format:

  • Lead with the answer or action, not the reasoning
  • One-sentence explanations max, unless user asks "why"
  • Use code blocks over prose when showing what to do
  • Tables over paragraphs for comparisons
  • Bullet points over flowing text

Intensity Levels

Level Behavior
lite Professional brevity. Full sentences, no filler. Good for team-visible work
standard Concise fragments OK. Skip articles where clear. Default mode
strict Telegraphic. Abbreviate (config, impl, fn, req, res, DB, auth). Arrows for causality (X -> Y). Maximum savings

Model Routing

When spawning subagents or the user asks for a task, suggest the cheapest viable model:

Task Type Suggest
Formatting, linting, renaming, imports, git ops "This doesn't need an LLM -- use prettier/eslint --fix/git directly"
Single file: tests, docs, types, simple fixes "Haiku handles this well: /model haiku"
Multi-file feature work, debugging, code review "Sonnet is sufficient: /model sonnet"
Architecture, complex refactors, security audits Opus (no suggestion needed, already justified)
Routine work while on Fable 5.1 ($10/$50, 2x Opus) "Opus 5 covers this at half the rate: /model opus"

Read the full file on GitHub · 104 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 4d ago Changed 69b7d0a6f5e1
  2. 10d ago First seen · 104 lines · 71 tokens per session scan A 4c59fd3dce14

Subscribe to this mod's changes

cost-mode is a skill published in the GitHub repository Sagargupta16/claude-cost-optimizer (35 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 71 tokens to every session and 1,155 once invoked, about $0.0004 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

rtk-optimizer

Wrap high-verbosity shell commands with RTK to reduce token consumption. Use when running git log, git diff, cargo test, pytest, or other verbose CLI output that wastes context window tokens.

FlorianBruniaux/claude-code-ultimate-guide · 44 tokens

session-save

Save the current session state (decisions, modified files, current status, and next steps) to a handoff file for later resume.

FlorianBruniaux/claude-code-ultimate-guide · 31 tokens

handoff-create

Generate a structured handoff document from the current session. Captures scope, relevant files with line numbers, key discoveries, work completed, current status, next steps, and code snippets. Use before ending a session or handing work to another agent.

FlorianBruniaux/claude-code-ultimate-guide · 53 tokens

handoff-update

Update an existing handoff document with current session progress. Applies section-specific merge rules: append-only for Work Done (never deletes history), replace for Status and Next Steps, merge for Files and Discoveries. Falls back to creating a new handoff if no source file is found.

FlorianBruniaux/claude-code-ultimate-guide · 60 tokens

handoff-resume

Load a handoff document and resume work from where a previous session left off. Parses scope, file references, completed work, and next steps, then confirms understanding before proceeding.

FlorianBruniaux/claude-code-ultimate-guide · 40 tokens

session

Session lifecycle management. Parent skill for session-related skills: learning (pattern extraction) and compact (context compression).

xiaobei930/cc-best · 24 tokens