Usage Watcher

Usage Watcher

Use this skill to control usage cost and avoid rate-limit surprises.

Workflow

1. Capture recent usage history to CSV/JSON.
2. Ingest live local-compute accounting from the running stack (/health plus /api/accounting/summary) whenever loopback evidence is available.
3. Run usage_guard.py analyze to measure burn rate, rate-limit posture, and local displacement value.
4. Run usage_guard.py plan to set practical daily/session caps.
5. Select and record a chain usage mode (economy, standard, surge) from the analysis and plan outputs.
6. Apply the recommendations before large agent workflows.

Analyze Command

python3 "$CODEX_HOME/skills/usage-watcher/scripts/usage_guard.py" analyze \
  --input /path/to/usage.csv \
  --window-days 30 \
  --daily-budget 140 \
  --weekly-budget 900 \
  --credits-remaining 236 \
  --five-hour-limit-remaining 100 \
  --weekly-limit-remaining 0 \
  --stack-health-url http://127.0.0.1:9000/health \
  --stack-summary-url http://127.0.0.1:9000/api/accounting/summary \
  --json-out /tmp/usage-analysis.json \
  --format table

Budget Plan Command

python3 "$CODEX_HOME/skills/usage-watcher/scripts/usage_guard.py" plan \
  --monthly-budget 2800 \
  --reserve-percent 20 \
  --work-days-per-week 5 \
  --sessions-per-day 3 \
  --burst-multiplier 1.5 \
  --json-out /tmp/usage-plan.json \
  --format table

Mandatory Chain Gate

Before finalizing skill chains, provide:

• usage_analysis_json=/tmp/usage-analysis.json
• usage_plan_json=/tmp/usage-plan.json
• usage_mode=<economy|standard|surge>
• stack_evidence when a local loopback stack is available

If this evidence is missing, chain selection is incomplete and must fail closed.

Mode Selection Rubric

Use deterministic mode selection from analysis output:

1. economy:
   • daily status is red, or
   • weekly status is red, or
   • projected 30-day burn exceeds remaining budget.
2. standard:
   • daily/weekly status are green or mixed green/yellow,
   • no active governor throttle/disable recommendation.
3. surge:
   • explicit deadline pressure is present,
   • budget remains within guardrails,
   • governor action is not throttle/disable.

Always record rationale in one short line with the selected mode.

Guardrail Policy

• Economy mode for discovery and triage.
• Standard mode for normal implementation tasks.
• Surge mode only for urgent deadlines.
• Prefer bounded scripts and cached artifacts over repeated broad discovery.
• When preview displacement value is positive, prefer local-first routing and skill chains that preserve paid credits and included-usage headroom.

Scope Boundary

Use this skill only for the usage-watcher lane and workflow defined in this file and its references.

Do not use this skill for unrelated lanes; route those through $skill-hub and the most specific matching skill.

References

• references/cost-control-playbook.md
• references/usage-csv-template.csv

Loopback

If this lane is unresolved, blocked, or ambiguous:

1. Capture current evidence and failure context.
2. Route back through $skill-hub for chain recalculation.
3. Resume only after the updated chain returns a deterministic next step.

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