token-budgetlisted

# Skill: Token Budget > **Load trigger:** `"load token-budget skill"` > **DORA:** Cap 3 (Context Engineering) > **Token cost:** Low (meta: about token cost itself) ## Purpose Audit and manage the token footprint of agent sessions to stay within AGENTS.md §4 budget protocols and avoid runaway Copilot billing. ## Token Cost Tiers (approximate — verify with current billing) | Tier | Use | Context size | | ----------- | ------------------------------------- | -------------- | | Low | Routing, quick lookups, preflight | < 8K tokens | | Medium | Feature implementation, docs | 8K–20K tokens | | High | Complex refactors, full file rewrites | 20K–32K tokens | | Over-budget | Multi-file architectural changes | > 32K tokens | Note: these are approximate estimates. Actual token counts depend on model, context management, and billing plan. Verify current rates at github.com/features/copilot and anthropic.com/pricing before planning large agent workloads. ## Context Footprint Sources (in descending size order) 1. AGENTS.md (always-on) — target: ≤ 88 lines ≈ ~2K tokens 2. Loaded skill files — each ≈ 500–800 tokens 3. Files read from context index — varies by file size 4. Conversation history — grows each turn 5. PR diff being reviewed — varies ## Audit Protocol Before a long session, estimate context size: ```bash # Count lines in always-on context wc -l AGENTS.md .agents/README.md # Estimate