loop-cost

Estimate daily token spend for loop engineering patterns by cadence and readiness level (L1–L3).

Uses cost metadata from patterns/registry.yaml.

Install & Run

npx @cobusgreyling/loop-cost --pattern ci-sweeper --cadence 15m --level L2
npx @cobusgreyling/loop-cost --pattern daily-triage --level L1 --json
npx @cobusgreyling/loop-cost --list
npx @cobusgreyling/loop-cost --pattern daily-triage --level L1 --with-caching

From this repo:

cd tools/loop-cost
npm install
npm test

Options

| Flag | Description | |------|-------------| | --pattern | Pattern id (see --list) | | --cadence | Override cadence (e.g. 15m, 1d) | | --level | L1, L2, or L3 (default L1) | | --orchestration | Multi-agent action cost: single (default), maker-checker, parallel:N, debate:R | | --conservative | Use slower cadence from ranges | | --json | Machine-readable output | | --with-caching | Add a caching scenario: apply cache-read discount to the stable (cacheable) fraction of report/action tokens from stable_fraction in registry.yaml |

Scenarios

Each estimate includes:

• Early-exit / no-op — empty watchlist, minimal tokens
• Full triage — every run does a full scan
• Action every run — implementer + verifier every time (worst case)
• Realistic blend — level-based mix (documented in output)
• Caching (opt-in via --with-caching) — discounts the stable portion of tokens using Anthropic-style cache-read pricing (~10% of base input); omitted when a pattern has no stable_fraction

Pair with loop-budget.md (scaffolded by loop-init) and loop-audit cost observability checks.

Orchestration cost

The scenarios above assume one implementer pass. A loop that fans out to multiple agents costs more on the action path (the no-op scan and single triage pass are unaffected). --orchestration applies a multiplier so the estimate — and the realistic per-run cap that feeds the circuit breaker — reflects the real shape of the run:

| Mode | Multiplier | Models | |------|-----------|--------| | single (default) | 1x | One implementer pass, self-checked | | maker-checker | 2x | Implementer + an independent verifier pass (the L2+ default) | | parallel:N | N+1 | N candidate agents fan out, plus a merge/arbiter pass | | debate:R | 1+R | One proposer plus R critique-and-revise rounds |

npx @cobusgreyling/loop-cost --pattern ci-sweeper --level L2 --orchestration maker-checker
npx @cobusgreyling/loop-cost --pattern ci-sweeper --level L2 --orchestration parallel:3

Multipliers above 2x emit a warning — deep fan-out or debate is easy to enable and expensive to run unattended.

Feed the circuit breaker

loop-context's breaker can resolve --token-budget directly from a pattern's realistic per-run estimate instead of a hand-typed guess:

npx @cobusgreyling/loop-context --check --ledger loop-ledger.json \
  --budget-from-pattern ci-sweeper --budget-level L2

loop-context shells out to this CLI's built output to do it — the packages stay independent at the source level, no shared runtime state. An explicit --token-budget on the loop-context call always overrides the derived value.

See docs/operating-loops.md.