High Token Usage – Request for Token Saving Options

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#36,684 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
25/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Needs clarification
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
rust
Domain
cli

Research direction

No files, tests, or entry points are identified in the issue. Before implementation, narrow the wishlist into a defined feature with acceptance criteria; completion is not specified beyond improved token transparency and usage controls.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

bug CLI context enhancement rate-limits
What version of Codex CLI is running?

codex-cli 0.146.0

What subscription do you have?

plus

Which model were you using?

solo max

What platform is your computer?

ubuntu24.04

What terminal emulator and version are you using (if applicable)?

Terminal

Codex doctor report
What issue are you seeing?

I have been using Codex for only two days, and I have already consumed about 80% of my monthly usage allowance. This makes it difficult to use Codex as my primary development tool.

It is not always clear what is consuming so many tokens. I would appreciate better visibility into token usage and more ways to reduce consumption.

Some features that would help include:

A Token Saver or Economy Mode.
An option to limit how much of the project is read automatically.
Per-task token usage statistics.
Recommendations for reducing token usage based on my workflow.
More control over context size and automatic file scanning.

These improvements would make Codex much more practical for independent developers and solo startups.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Uploaded thread: 019fc5e7-2101-7b83-8957-aeefce6d5808

What is the expected behavior?

Codex should provide better control over token usage and make usage more transparent. During normal software development, monthly usage should not be consumed so quickly without clear visibility into why.

Ideally, Codex should include:

A Token Saver (Economy) mode for lower-cost development.
Per-task token usage statistics.
Controls to limit automatic context size and file scanning.
Clear recommendations for reducing token consumption.

These features would help developers use Codex more efficiently and make monthly usage more predictable.

Additional information

Thank you for considering this feedback.

Dominant language
Rust
Stars
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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