Token Burn

Burn is not proof. Output is not victory. Accepted work that repeats is leverage.

today · in flight

349K active

14 sessions · spend 5.0M · Claude Code 349K
by project: <home> 233K · pal 68K · memory 23K
top session d33e7f08 (<home>, 233K, —)

2026-08-23
as of 2026-08-23T12:55:07Z

Stupid button · 24m ago · gemma4:e4b · 3969t in / 911t out · 119.8s

Trend vs last week

Waste is UP 21.4M (564.3%) vs last week.
Accepted is UP 3.6M (139.2%) vs last week.
Unsettled is DOWN 9.0M (-67.2%) vs last week.

What worked

pal: 2.8M
pal/dashboards: 1.7M
las: 1.4M
pal/templari: 247K
mainstay-av: 0

What wasted tokens

<home>: 25.0M. Note: UNMEASURABLE — ran outside any git repo, so 0.0 is the meter failing to see the work, not a judgement on it.
pal: 476K (ratio: 0.544)
pal: 388K (ratio: 0.544)
mainstay-av: 2.0M (ratio: 0.0)

Why the big number is big

A subagent spawn forks its parent, so the child starts holding the parent's whole transcript and the same conversation is charged once per fork, on every turn. The root 019fee2e-1781 involved 13 threads and 12 forks, with a max depth of 2. The total charged was 579.6M, with a replay_pct of 95.7% and a cost_per_output of 315.8. The agents involved were Averroes, Copernicus, Faraday, Galileo, Halley, and Hooke.

What needs a verdict

mainstay-av + 5af22ad7 + 2026-08-22 + mainstay-av/docs/entity: suggested_verdict: review. (verdict_reason: open_loop, 1.8M burn — worth looking)
pal + 5af22ad7 + 2026-08-21 + pal: suggested_verdict: review. (verdict_reason: open_loop, 1.4M burn — worth looking)
pal + 5af22ad7 + 2026-08-20 + pal: suggested_verdict: not_useful. (verdict_reason: open_loop, 476K burn — small miss)
pal + 83ba2858 + 2026-08-17 + pal: suggested_verdict: not_useful. (verdict_reason: open_loop, 388K burn — small miss)
mainstay-av + 5af22ad7 + 2026-08-21 + mainstay-av/docs/entity: suggested_verdict: not_useful. (verdict_reason: open_loop, 233K burn — small miss)
pal + d33e7f08 + 2026-08-23 + pal: suggested_verdict: not_useful. (verdict_reason: open_loop, 68K burn — small miss)
dreamweaver + 5af22ad7 + 2026-08-19 + dreamweaver: suggested_verdict: not_useful. (verdict_reason: open_loop, 25K burn — small miss)
memory + d33e7f08 + 2026-08-23 + /home/khoward/.claude/projects/-home-khoward/memory: suggested_verdict: not_useful. (verdict_reason: open_loop, 23K burn — small miss)

One contrarian observation

The <home> project shows a 0.0 acceptance_ratio, but the acceptance_note explicitly states this is unmeasurable due to running outside a git repo.

---

Measurability caveat (generated, not model-authored): <home> (25.0M) ran outside any git repo. There is no diff to credit, so a 0.0 acceptance ratio there is the meter failing to see the work — not a judgement on it. Only ratios on measurable: true projects are verdicts.

Rollups — acceptance lane

Headline is accepted tokens (active lane, manual label wins over git auto-classification). Unsettled = committed-not-merged + open-loop. "Active" excludes cache replay; "spend" includes it.

Last 7 days

6.1M accepted

unsettled 4.4M · acceptance 17%

spend 891.2M · 175 sessions · Codex 23.6M / Claude Code 12.1M

Last 30 days

8.7M accepted

unsettled 171.9M · acceptance 4%

spend 9.01B · 686 sessions · Claude Code 144.3M / Codex 65.2M

Last 90 days

8.7M accepted

unsettled 284.8M · acceptance 3%

spend 11.80B · 804 sessions · Claude Code 208.0M / Codex 114.4M

Daily heatmap — last 60 days

Each cell = one UTC day, color intensity = log10(active tokens). Hover for date + counts.

LessMore· log-scale, exact lane

Top 10 days

Date	Active	Spend	Sessions	Top project	Outcomes
2026-07-28	34.5M	1.78B	47	<home> (29.6M)	?=50
2026-08-01	24.5M	1.57B	10	payday (6.1M)	?=20
2026-07-16	23.3M	797.0M	24	<home> (16.3M)	?=27
2026-07-31	23.1M	2.10B	9	payday (8.1M)	?=34
2026-08-18	22.3M	554.5M	38	<home> (21.6M)	no_repo=38 · accepted=5 · PRs #27
2026-07-30	19.4M	645.3M	26	payday (16.5M)	?=31
2026-07-21	18.3M	337.5M	2	<home> (9.1M)	?=4
2026-08-06	16.5M	592.1M	51	<home> (12.0M)	?=58
2026-07-29	11.2M	118.2M	25	payday (10.8M)	?=27
2026-07-24	10.7M	402.8M	19	las (5.9M)	?=21

By project — last 7 days

Project	Active
<home>	25.0M
pal	5.1M
mainstay-av	2.0M
pal/dashboards	1.7M
las	1.4M
pal/templari	257K
memory	87K
.claude	60K
hooks	25K
dreamweaver	25K
18	18K
pal/memory	14K

By outcome — last 7 days

accepted 11 #32 (MERGED), #16 (MERGED), #27 (MERGED)

open_loop 11

no_repo 181

Effectiveness — last 30 days

Where delegated work shipped (top) vs. where high burn never crossed an acceptance line (bottom). Bars: accepted · unsettled · waste. Normalized to the widest project in window.

Leverage — most accepted

Project	Accepted	Ratio
pal	4.6M	51%
pal/dashboards	1.7M	100%
las	1.4M	63%
memory	606K	39%
pal/templari	427K	98%
pal/memory	0	0%

Waste candidates — lowest acceptance ratio (≥100K active)

Project	Accepted	Ratio	Mix
<home>	0	0%
payday	0	0%
dreamweaver	0	0%
panacea-ai	0	0%
pal/placeholders	0	0%
mainstay-av	0	0%

Needs validation — last 14 days (19 unsettled)

Sessions where auto-classification couldn't tell shipped work from waste. Highest-burn first. Manually label these with `label: "used"|"partial"|"redo"|"review"|"not_useful"` in token_burn.jsonl to override the auto verdict.

Date	Project	Session	Active	Auto	cwd
2026-08-12	dreamweaver	d476d902	6.5M	open_loop	.../dreamweaver/.worktrees/deploy-main
2026-08-14	dreamweaver	d476d902	2.2M	open_loop	.../dreamweaver/.worktrees/deploy-main
2026-08-10	pal/placeholders	d476d902	1.8M	open_loop	.../pal/placeholders
2026-08-22	mainstay-av	5af22ad7	1.8M	open_loop	.../mainstay-av/docs/entity
2026-08-10	dreamweaver	d476d902	1.6M	open_loop	.../dreamweaver
2026-08-21	pal	5af22ad7	1.4M	open_loop	.../pal
2026-08-12	pal/placeholders	d476d902	1.2M	open_loop	.../pal/placeholders
2026-08-20	pal	5af22ad7	476K	open_loop	.../pal
2026-08-17	pal	83ba2858	388K	open_loop	.../pal
2026-08-21	mainstay-av	5af22ad7	233K	open_loop	.../mainstay-av/docs/entity
2026-08-23	pal	d33e7f08	68K	open_loop	.../pal
2026-08-16	panacea-ai	83ba2858	53K	open_loop	.../panacea-ai
2026-08-16	dreamweaver	83ba2858	41K	open_loop	.../dreamweaver
2026-08-19	dreamweaver	5af22ad7	25K	open_loop	.../dreamweaver
2026-08-23	memory	d33e7f08	23K	open_loop	/home/khoward/.claude/projects/-home-khoward/memory
2026-08-23	pal/memory	d33e7f08	14K	open_loop	.../pal/memory
2026-08-23	pal/templari	d33e7f08	11K	open_loop	.../pal/templari
2026-08-15	memory	83ba2858	6K	open_loop	/home/khoward/.claude/projects/-home-khoward/memory
2026-08-23	ideas	d33e7f08	2K	open_loop	/home/khoward/ideas

Recent events — last 30 rows

Latest enriched rows from the JSONL (sorted by date desc, active desc as tiebreaker). M = manually labeled.

Date	Tool	Project	Session	Active	Output	Outcome
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	d33e7f08	233K	15K	no_repo
2026-08-23	CC	pal	d33e7f08	68K	9K	open_loop
2026-08-23	CC	memory	d33e7f08	23K	1K	open_loop
2026-08-23	CC	pal/memory	d33e7f08	14K	2K	open_loop
2026-08-23	CC	pal/templari	d33e7f08	11K	3K	open_loop
2026-08-23	CC	ideas	d33e7f08	2K	888	open_loop
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	2994ab12	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	5c25494c	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	60ea1cf2	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	6780e264	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	747bfb6d	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	8804f095	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	d79d15f2	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	e3cae885	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	f06e1174	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	f4288236	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	fa71d95a	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-23	CC	<home>	faf9f830	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-22	CC	mainstay-av	5af22ad7	1.8M	57K	open_loop
2026-08-22	CC	<home>	053bb15b	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-22	CC	<home>	1e0d45ff	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-22	CC	<home>	20a4587d	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-22	CC	<home>	33f690ae	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-22	CC	<home>	364eaae2	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-22	CC	<home>	460be977	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-22	CC	<home>	4b255885	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-22	CC	<home>	5e5a17f4	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-22	CC	<home>	6271cf5c	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-22	CC	<home>	750f33b9	0	0	no_repo
2026-08-22	CC	<home>	769a41c8	0	0	no_repo

Generated 2026-08-23 12:55 UTC from ~/ideas/pal/dashboards/token_burn.jsonl (987 rows). Sources: ~/.codex/sessions/ (exact), ~/.claude/projects/-home-khoward/ (exact). No estimate lane currently active.