Token Budget Advisor

Offer users informed choice about response depth before answering. Control token usage, response length, and answer depth. Trigger phrases: token budget, token count, token usage, response length, short version, brief answer, detailed answer, exhaustive, save tokens. Adapted from everything-claude-code by @affaan-m (MIT)

Intercept response flow to let users choose depth before answering.

When to Use

• User mentions tokens, budget, depth, or response length
• User says "short version", "tldr", "brief", "exhaustive", etc.
• User wants to control detail level upfront

Do not trigger when: user already set depth this session, or answer is trivially one line.

Depth Options

Present before answering:

text

Input: ~[N] tokens | Type: [type] | Complexity: [level]

[1] Essential (25%)   -> ~[tokens]   Direct answer only
[2] Moderate (50%)    -> ~[tokens]   Answer + context + example
[3] Detailed (75%)    -> ~[tokens]   Multiple examples + alternatives
[4] Exhaustive (100%) -> ~[tokens]   Everything

Level Guide

Level	Length	Include	Omit
25%	2-4 sent	Direct answer, conclusion	Context, examples
50%	1-3 para	Answer + context + 1 example	Deep analysis, edge cases
75%	Structured	Examples, pros/cons, alternatives	Extreme cases
100%	No limit	Everything	Nothing

Shortcuts

If user signals depth, respond at that level immediately:

• "1" / "25%" / "short" / "brief" / "tldr" → 25%
• "2" / "50%" / "moderate" → 50%
• "3" / "75%" / "detailed" → 75%
• "4" / "100%" / "exhaustive" → 100%

Maintain user's chosen level for rest of session unless changed.

Estimation

Heuristic-based (no real tokenizer):

• Input tokens = estimate from prompt size
• Response window = input × complexity multiplier
• Accuracy ~85-90%, variance ±15%