Hermes Cost Audit

Find where this Hermes install spends tokens and propose the cuts with the best payoff, backed by measurements taken on this machine.

When to Use

• The user asks why Hermes is expensive, where tokens go, or how to spend less.
• As a weekly cron job that reports spend and new savings opportunities.

Procedure

Run every command with the terminal tool. Read, measure, and report. Do not change any setting until the user approves the specific change.

1. Measure the fixed prefix that every model call carries, per surface actually in use:

   hermes tools --summary                      # which platforms have which toolsets
   hermes prompt-size --json                   # CLI
   hermes prompt-size --platform telegram --json   # repeat for each platform in use
   

   Record system prompt bytes, skills index bytes, tool schema bytes, and the three largest toolsets per platform.

2. Measure real spend over time:

   hermes insights --days 7
   hermes insights --days 30
   

3. Read the settings that drive cost. auto on an auxiliary task means the main model:

   hermes config get model
   hermes config get auxiliary.compression.model
   hermes config get auxiliary.title_generation.model
   hermes config get auxiliary.approval.model
   hermes config get auxiliary.background_review.model
   hermes config get delegation.model
   hermes config get cron.model
   hermes config get agent.disabled_toolsets
   hermes config get prompt_caching.cache_ttl
   

4. Check for these patterns and estimate the saving of each from the step 1 numbers (roughly 4.2, 4.5 bytes per token):