openclaw-tally

Tokens tell you how much you paid. Tasks tell you what you got. Tally tracks every OpenClaw task from start to finish — cost, complexity, and efficiency score.

Reframes AI usage from token-counting to task-completion economics. Instead of "how many tokens?", answer "how much to get X done, and was it worth it?"

🛠️ Installation

1. Ask OpenClaw (Recommended)

Tell OpenClaw: "Install the openclaw-tally skill." The agent will handle the installation and configuration automatically.

2. Manual Installation (CLI)

If you prefer the terminal, run:

bash

clawhub install openclaw-tally

Security & Privacy Declaration

• Hook: This skill registers a message-post hook and processes every message.
• Local only: All processing is purely local. No data is sent to any external server.
• Message content: The task detector reads message text to identify task boundaries (start/complete/fail signals) using regex pattern matching. No message text is stored — only metadata (token count, model, session_id, complexity score) is persisted to the database.
• Sandboxed storage: SQLite database defaults to ~/.openclaw/tally/tally.db. A custom path can be provided for testing.
• Native dependency: Requires better-sqlite3 (native Node.js addon). Installation runs npm install which triggers a native build step.
• Permissions: No network access. No exec permissions. Filesystem limited to ~/.openclaw/tally/.

What It Does

• Detects tasks automatically from message streams (Layer 1: Task Detector)
• Attributes costs across sessions, sub-agents, and cron triggers (Layer 2: Task Ledger)
• Computes TES (Task Efficiency Score) per task, model, and cron (Layer 3: Analytics Engine)

Commands

• /tasks list — Show recent tasks with status, cost, and TES
• /tasks stats — Summary statistics for a time period
• /tasks this-week — This week's task summary
• /tasks show <task_id> — Show task detail
• /tasks report --dimension model — Model efficiency report
• /tasks cron-health — Cron efficiency and health check

Complexity Levels

• L1 (Reflex): Single-turn, text-only, no tools
• L2 (Routine): Multi-turn or 1–3 tool calls
• L3 (Mission): Multiple tools + file I/O + external APIs
• L4 (Campaign): Sub-agents + cron + cross-session

TES (Task Efficiency Score)

text

TES = quality_score / (normalized_cost × complexity_weight)

• > 2.0 🟢 Excellent
• 1.0–2.0 🟡 Good
• 0.5–1.0 🟠 Below average
• < 0.5 🔴 Poor
• 0.0 ⚫ Failed

Usage

When the skill is installed, it automatically hooks into message-post. Use the /tasks commands above to query analytics. All data is stored locally in ~/.openclaw/tally/tally.db.

See PRD.md for the full product specification.