4 ms·
Apologies, you're right - I used imprecise terminology. The entire initial JSON structure that was sent from Claude Claude to the LLM at the start of a session
by mft_ 3mo ago
Apologies, you're right - I used imprecise terminology. The entire initial JSON structure that was sent from Claude Claude to the LLM at the start of a session was 162k. This included the system prompt together with a list of tools (some with very extensive explanations), MCP server details, etc.
I was simply supporting the article's data - their reported 33k tokens is probably roughly 150-165k.
- iamflimflam1 3mo agoA lot of people will just add as many tools as they can think of. I don’t think it’s obvious that this costs money.
- mh- 3mo agoA smarter approach (progressive disclosure) for tools has been implemented by (I presume all) the harnesses over recent months, but you're 100% right in any case. I enable tools specific to each project only in that project, and have very very few in my global config. Like <5k tokens worth.
- ricardobeat 3mo agoThat’s entirely dependent on how many plugins, MCP tools, agents you have, and if you have pre-filling of all available tools enabled. Best way to avoid unnecessary expense is to avoid it all and use CLI tools instead.
- mft_ 3mo agoAgree. It's a fairly minimal list with very few extras added. Current /context on a fresh session (compare to that above) is: Opus 4.8 15.8k/1m tokens (2%) System prompt: 4.5k tokens (0.4%) System tools: 7.9k tokens (0.8%) Memory files: 441 tokens (0.0%) Skills: 3.1k tokens (0.3%) Messages: 8 tokens (0.0%) Free space: 984.2k (98.4%)
- mh- 3mo agoAh that makes sense, wasn't trying to be pedantic. Thanks for clarifying.