Token Usage

Anthropic is quietly A/B testing reduced default effort levels in Claude Code, and the change does not make the coding agent dumber — it makes it less proactive. Effort controls how much autonomous work Claude performs per turn (reading files, running tests, double-checking its own output) before responding or asking for context. When the default drops, you get faster, cheaper turns that skip deep investigation, which is fine for scoped tasks but can silently degrade complex multi-file refactors. ...

An agent trajectory monitor watches the full sequence of steps, tool calls, decisions, and token spend an AI agent makes in real time — not just the final answer. Because AI agents consume 5-30x more tokens per task than standard chatbots, real-time trajectory monitoring has moved from a nice-to-have to a budget requirement. It lets you see whether your agent is doing the right work or just getting the right answer by chance. ...