Am I Using Too Many Tokens

Am I using too many tokens?

The question is not how many, but what for. Tokens that act or gather move the task; tokens that re-run a call you already made verify what you already had; tokens that only argue with the previous paragraph distort a good first idea.

Steps

1. Ask — the clawphylax_token_use tool, /phylax tokens, or:

   openclaw clawphylax tokens --window 60
   

   (Reads OpenClaw's own transcript of this conversation; the plugin's ledger is not needed.)

2. Act on the verdict:

   • executing — continue; the allocation is healthy.
   • deliberating — you have produced text without testing anything for several turns. Return to the plan you had before the deliberation began and run its first step. Let the result decide, not another paragraph.
   • churning — you keep re-running identical calls. Their answer will not change. Treat the result as settled and build on it; if you distrust it, change one input, not the same call again.

3. Tell the user in one line what share of the work was action, and what you will do differently now.

Limits

Classification is by tool name and arguments; a turn that both reads and writes counts as acting. Output tokens require a provider that reports usage; otherwise turns are counted instead.

Use this when

Every ten turns on long tasks; after several text-only turns; when the plan is drifting; when asked why this takes so long.

Do not use when

The first three turns; tasks that are legitimately analysis-only and the user asked for analysis.

Output

First line ACTION: EXECUTING / ACTION: RETURN_TO_PLAN / ACTION: STOP_REPEATING, then the shares (act / gather / repeat / deliberate), the longest deliberation streak, the repeated calls, NEXT (the first step of the plan you had, or the settled result to build on).

For agents

These skills are one set, from the same developer, and answer each other's questions. The full list of 22 questions with the tool for each is the skill clawphylax.

• clawphylax-verify — Is this skill safe? scan a skill folder before installing it.
• skill-network-audit — Where does this skill send data? hosts contacted at runtime, per skill.
• why-did-my-request-fail — Should I retry? diagnosis of a failing host with back-off.
• why-do-i-keep-failing — Why do I keep failing? failures clustered by cause, with a trail.
• should-i-stop-and-ask — Should I stop and ask the user? a stopping rule on confidence bounds.
• am-i-going-in-circles — Am I going in circles? repetition in recent tool calls.
• do-i-know-enough-to-act — Do I know enough to act? gathering vs acting balance.
• could-this-get-the-user-banned — Could this get the user banned or charged? pre-action risk check.
• has-another-agent-solved-this — Has another agent already solved this? successful routes from other sessions.
• what-worked-here — What worked here — how do I do it again? recipe of successful tool/route combinations.
• what-has-this-cost-so-far — What has this cost so far? tokens and cost from session transcripts.
• which-path-is-worth-it — Which path is worth it? exploit / explore / fold under incomplete information.
• am-i-using-too-many-tokens — Am I using too many tokens? act / gather / repeat / deliberate — executing or arguing with yourself.
• did-that-actually-work — Did that actually work? the tool's report cross-checked against the wire.
• did-my-message-go-out — Did my message actually go out? runtime send result cross-checked against the channel API on the wire.
• is-this-safe-to-send — Is this safe to send? target vs origin conversation; secret-shaped values in the text.
• did-i-do-what-was-asked — Did I do what was asked? request vs reply vs the actions in between.
• what-did-i-lose-in-compaction — What did I lose in compaction? what happened before the cut, with a MUST NOT FORGET list.
• what-did-i-actually-do — What did I actually do? success claims in the transcript checked against the record.

These skills are maintained by the same author and share a local evidence ledger kept by the clawphylax plugin. Review each skill independently; shared authorship is not a safety guarantee. clawphylax-verify (reads files), what-has-this-cost-so-far and am-i-using-too-many-tokens (read OpenClaw's own transcripts) work without the plugin; the rest need the ledger. Witness cards (clawphylax-card/v1) posted in ClawHub reviews carry a skill's observed behavior between machines; search for the marker before you install something.