ablate cost
Static per-section token cost. $0, no agent runs, no network.
ablate cost
ablate cost CLAUDE.md
ablate cost CLAUDE.md --cheap --turns 12Arguments & flags
| Argument/flag | Default | What |
|---|---|---|
FILE | auto-detected | Config file. If omitted, looks for CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, then .cursorrules in the current directory. |
--model ID | Sonnet 5 | Price against this model. |
--cheap | off | Price against Haiku 4.5 instead. |
--turns N | 8 | Turns per session, for the session-cost total. |
What it does
Splits the config into sections on markdown headings, estimates tokens per section (deterministic, ±15%), and prints what re-sending that text costs on every turn — quoted per 1,000 turns, since a single session of a modest config rounds to “$0.000” and reads as free, which is the opposite of the point.
This is the one number the tool can always give you. It is arithmetic, not
an experiment, so it never comes back inconclusive — every other metric in
ablate can. It answers what your config costs, not whether it earns
it; for that, see ablate compare.
Unlike every other command, ablate cost does not require a git repository
— it’s pure arithmetic on a file.
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