Agent skill · writing content · affaan-m
token-budget-advisor
Offer a choice of response depth (25%/50%/75%/100%) with token estimates before answering, then answer at that level. Use when the user asks to control response length or token budget, such as 'token budget', 'short version', 'brief answer', 'respuesta corta vs larga', 'cuántos tokens', 'ahorrar tokens', 'responde al 50%', 'dame la versión corta', 'quiero controlar cuánto usas'. Skip if depth is already set this session or 'token' means an auth/payment token.
Why this skill is useful
Provides specific heuristics and a structured approach for estimating response depth and token usage that the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
About 3k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-06. 238,342 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Token Budget Advisor (TBA) Intercept the response flow to offer the user a choice about response depth before Claude answers. When to Use User wants to control how long or detailed a response is User mentions tokens, budget, depth, or response length User says "short version", "tldr", "brief", "al 25%", "exhaustive", etc. Any time the user wants to choose depth/detail level upfront Do not trigger when: user already set a level this session (maintain it silently), or the answer is trivially one line. How It Works Step 1 — Estimate input tokens Use the repository's canonical context-budget heuristics to estimate the prompt's token count mentally. Use the same calibration guidance as context-budget: prose: words × 1.3 code-heavy or mixed/code blocks: chars / 4 For mixed content, use the dominant content type and keep the estimate heuristic. Step 2 — Estimate response size by complexity Classify the prompt, then apply the multiplier range to get the full response window: Complexity Multiplier range Example prompts -------------- ------------------ ------------------------------------------------------ Simple 3× – 8× "What is X?", yes/no, single fact Medium 8× – 20× "How does X work?" Medium-High 10× – 25× Code request with context Complex 15× – 40× Multi-part analysis, comparisons, architecture Creative 10× – 30× Stories, essays, narrative writing Response window = inputtokens × multmin to inputtokens × multmax (but don’t exceed your model’s configured output-token limit). …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills affaan-m/token-budget-advisor--0e22e1