What this skill does

# Token Economy Reduce OpenClaw costs by 60-80% through intelligent model routing and context management. Cheap-first escalation (GPT-4o → Sonnet → Opus), zero-token heartbeats, and budget guardrails. Save $60-105/month per deployment. **When to use:** Questions about costs, model routing, token optimization, budget **What to know:** ## Active Optimizations This OpenClaw fork includes token-economy hooks (deployed Feb 13, 2026): **1. Model Routing** - Cheap-first with escalation: - Start: GPT-4o (fast, cheap) - Escalate: Sonnet (balanced) - Last resort: Opus (expensive, complex tasks only) **2. Bounded Context** - Hard caps prevent bloat: - Max bundle size: 10,000 tokens - Auto-truncate if exceeded - Prevents runaway context costs **3. Zero-Token Heartbeat** - Pre-LLM check: - If `HEARTBEAT.md` empty → skip API call (100% cost elimination) - Heartbeats were ~50% of token usage before optimization **4. Token Auditing** - Full transparency: - Log: `~/.openclaw/token-audit.jsonl` - Daily reports available - Budget guardrails: $25/day hard cap ## Expected Impact - 60-80% overall token reduction - 100% heartbeat cost elimination - ~$1-1.50/day (vs ~$3-5/day before) - $60-105/month savings ## Config Location `~/.openclaw/openclaw.json` - token-economy hooks configuration ## Repository https://github.com/pfaria32/open-claw-token-economy ## Status Commands ```bash # Check current model openclaw status # View token usage cat ~/.openclaw/token-audit.jsonl | tail -20 # Check heartbeat config cat ~/workspace/HEARTBEAT.md ``` ## When to Mention - User asks about costs or budget - Model selection questions - "Why is this slow/expensive?" - Optimization discussions - Before making model routing decisions ## Auto-Switch to Sonnet If model is set to Opus and there's no user input for >1 hour with no complex task in progress, automatically switch back to Sonnet to save costs. A cron job checks this every 30 minutes. **When to stay on Opus:** - Active complex reasoning/debugging task - User explicitly requested Opus for a specific purpose - Working on something that genuinely needs the extra capability