3-tier framework cuts AI coding assistant token costs by 76%

Short summary

A practical 3-tier framework for managing token consumption when using frontier reasoning models for coding. Key strategies include demanding plans before refactors, treating chat sessions as disposable pods, lowering reasoning effort for routine tasks, and tiering model selection by task complexity. Following these habits can reduce output token costs by up to 76% and avoid hitting rate limits mid-workday.

• •Demand a plan before complex refactors to avoid 15k-token hallucinated loops
• •Clear chat sessions between subtasks to avoid the resend tax on bloated context
• •Drop reasoning effort to medium for routine tasks and tier model selection by complexity

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