agent-cost-control SKILL.md skillA
agent-cost-control from amey-thakur/ai-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add amey-thakur/ai-skills/agent-cost-control@git:20260728.819a393Pins git:20260728.819a393 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- amey-thakur/ai-skills
- Path
skills/ai-coding-tools/agent-cost-control/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 1
- Latest version
- git:20260728.819a393, committed Jul 28, 2026
- Size
- 1,790 bytes
- Repository stars
- 14
- License
- MIT
Keep agent usage within budget through context discipline, model selection, and caching, without degrading results. Use when agent costs are rising or long sessions are expensive.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# Agent cost control Cost scales with tokens processed, and most waste is context that was never needed. Controlling it is mostly about what you send rather than about using a weaker model. ## Method 1. **Reduce context before reducing model.** Trimming irrelevant files preserves quality while cutting cost; a weaker model may not (see context-compression). 2. **Use prompt caching for stable prefixes.** Instructions and reference material that repeat across turns can be cached at substantially lower cost (see prompt-caching). 3. **Match the model to the task.** Routine mechanical edits do not need the strongest model, while architectural work does (see agent-progressive-disclosure). 4. **Start fresh sessions for new tasks.** Continuing in a long session carries the entire history into every subsequent turn. 5. **Avoid re-reading unchanged files.** Repeated reads of the same large file across a session are pure duplication. 6. **Bound autonomous loops.** An agent iterating without a cap can consume a large budget on a task it cannot complete (see agent-loop-until-exhausted). 7. **Measure cost per task, not per token.** A more expensive model …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add amey-thakur/ai-skills/agent-cost-control@sha256:d2514705141d1c8bThe line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260728.819a393, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_jjgbyzahhznfidds)
5 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 1 version of this file, committed on Jul 28, 2026.
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (1790 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
amey-thakur/ai-skills · 14 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-09-06 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_jjgbyzahhznfidds GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=amey-thakur/ai-skills/agent-cost-control GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/d2514705141d1c8b9fadd98f6fdec1a3c42678a1cd6c0ce7028520b50e3859ad
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.