CodeBurn — see where your AI coding spend goes

CodeBurn is a free, open-source, local-first tool that tracks AI coding token usage and cost across 40 tools and agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini, Grok, OpenCode, and more), broken down by model, project, and task. It reads the session files those tools already write to disk — no wrapper, no proxy, no API keys — and prices every call from LiteLLM's daily-refreshed pricing data. Four surfaces (terminal TUI, browser dashboard, macOS menu bar / GNOME panel, and an MCP server) all read the same on-disk source of truth.

When to use this skill

Getting a quick answer to "where did my AI budget go this week/month?" (codeburn, codeburn overview, codeburn report)
Finding concrete token/dollar waste in a Claude Code setup — re-read files, bloated CLAUDE.md, unused MCP servers, ghost agents/skills — and applying the fix (codeburn optimize, codeburn optimize --apply)
Capping runaway session spend before it happens, or flagging projects with known waste at session start (codeburn guard install)
Deciding which model is actually worth its price for a given kind of work (codeburn compare)
Checking whether AI-assisted work actually shipped, or was reverted / abandoned (codeburn yield)
Exposing live usage/savings data to an agent mid-conversation (codeburn mcp)
Diagnosing why a tool shows $0 or no data (codeburn doctor)

When not to use this skill

The user wants to change how much a model costs per call (pricing policy, rate limits) — CodeBurn only measures and reports spend, it does not set prices or throttle API calls itself (guard's caps stop a session, they don't change billing)
The user wants cloud/team-wide spend analytics with a hosted backend as the primary need — CodeBurn's sync feature is a preview push-to-your-own-URL telemetry channel, not a hosted SaaS dashboard
The task is about the AI tools' own behavior/config unrelated to cost (e.g., writing a new Claude Code skill, debugging an MCP server's logic) and no spend/waste/token question is actually in play

Instructions

Step 1: Run it instantly, no install

npx codeburn                 # opens the interactive TUI dashboard, last 7 days

For a permanent command: npm install -g codeburn (or bunx/pnpm dlx/ brew install codeburn on macOS). Requires Node.js 22.13+.

Step 2: Get the month at a glance, as text you can paste

codeburn overview                                    # this month, clean tables
codeburn overview --no-color                         # plain text for a PR/Slack/tweet
codeburn overview -p all                              # last 6 months
codeburn overview -p lifetime                         # full history
codeburn overview --provider claude                   # one tool only
codeburn status                                        # compact one-liner: today + month
codeburn report --format json                          # full dashboard data as JSON

Step 3: Find waste before fixing anything

codeburn optimize                       # scan the last 30 days
codeburn optimize -p week               # scope to the last 7 days
codeburn optimize --format json         # setup health + findings as JSON

Scans sessions and the ~/.claude/ setup for re-read files, low Read:Edit ratio, uncapped bash output, unused MCP servers, ghost agents/skills, bloated CLAUDE.md, and low-value expensive sessions. Each finding carries an estimated token/dollar saving, a ready-to-paste fix, and an urgency ranking rolled into an A–F setup-health grade.

Step 4: Apply fixes safely, and be able to undo them

codeburn optimize --apply --dry-run   # print the plan, change nothing — do this first
codeburn optimize --apply --yes       # apply every appliable fix without prompting
codeburn act list                     # every change CodeBurn has made
codeburn act undo --last              # roll the most recent change back
codeburn act report                   # realized vs estimated savings, 3+ days later

Every applied change is backed up and journaled before it lands; always preview with --dry-run before --apply --yes in an automated flow.

Step 5: Guard the budget going forward

codeburn guard install            # hooks into this project's .claude/settings.json
codeburn guard install --global   # or into ~/.claude/settings.json
codeburn guard status             # caps, install locations, flagged projects
codeburn guard allow              # lift the hard cap for the current session only

Soft cap (default $5) warns once; hard cap (default $15) stops the session; a checkpoint nudge fires on sessions that end with no edits/commits past a threshold. Caps live in ~/.config/codeburn/guard.json; hooks fail open and never block a session on their own error.

Step 6: Compare models and verify spend shipped

codeburn compare --provider claude      # one-shot rate, retries, cost/edit, cache hit
codeburn yield -p 30days --format json  # productive vs reverted/abandoned spend

yield correlates sessions with git commits by timestamp and requires being run from a git repository.

Step 7: Wire usage/savings into an agent (MCP)

claude mcp add codeburn -- npx -y codeburn mcp

Exposes get_usage (fast breakdowns by tool/model/project/task) and get_savings (waste findings, retry tax, routing waste) over stdio, reading the same local data as the CLI. Project names are pseudonymized unless the caller asks with include_project_names: true.

Step 8: Diagnose a tool showing $0 or no data

codeburn doctor                     # every provider, human-readable
codeburn doctor --provider opencode # diagnose one provider
codeburn doctor --json              # machine-readable

Fully offline and read-only: shows the exact paths probed (with any env override such as CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/CODEX_HOME), how many sessions parsed, and a one-line verdict per provider.

Best practices

Always --dry-run before --apply --yes — codeburn optimize --apply writes to real config files; preview the plan first, especially in a non-interactive/automated flow.
Run codeburn doctor before trusting a zero — a $0/empty report usually means a path/env-var mismatch, not zero spend; doctor is read-only and safe to run anytime.
codeburn act undo before hand-editing — undo refuses (unless --force) if the target file changed since the fix was applied, which is the signal to inspect manually rather than force it.
Guard caps are soft by default — the hard cap ($15 default) is what actually stops a session; confirm both guard status caps before relying on it for a hard budget limit.
yield needs a git repo — run it from the project directory, not a scratch/temp directory, or attribution will be empty.
Prefer --format json for scripting — report, today, month, status, optimize, export -f json, and yield all support structured JSON output; don't scrape the colored TUI/table output.
sync is preview — treat codeburn sync (team telemetry push) as an evolving protocol, not a stable integration surface, when scripting against it.

References

references/commands.md — curated command reference by workflow stage
CodeBurn GitHub Repository
Supported providers — per-tool data location and quirks
Project standards: .agent-skills/skill-standardization/SKILL.md

Examples

Example 1: Find and fix waste in a Claude Code setup this week

codeburn optimize -p week
codeburn optimize --apply --dry-run
codeburn optimize --apply --yes
codeburn act report

Example 2: Cap a runaway session and check what shipped

codeburn guard install --statusline
# ...work happens...
codeburn yield -p 30days