I Built The Token Saver Skill To Cut My Token Use By 90%

YouTube/Substack · YouTube · Read

• Starting data point: Nate logged 3.77 billion Codex tokens in one day, with 95.73% (~3.59B) flagged as “reused input” across 143 tracked threads — prompted an investigation into which reuse is essential versus accumulated inertia, rather than an assumption that all of it is waste.
• Distinguishes wasteful repetition from productive reuse: context that enables continuity across drafts, tools, and decisions is not the same as bloat, so the fix isn’t blanket trimming.
• Named framework: “token count is a trace, not a scoreboard” — meaningful reduction requires comparing identical work done two different ways, not just watching the raw number fall.
• Ships the “Token Saver” skill for Codex and Claude Code plus 15 ranked changes (9 immediately actionable) aimed at cutting reused input by ~90% without degrading output quality, retry rate, or review time.
• Practical takeaway: measure token spend as before/after on matched jobs before optimising; treat prompt caching and the Token Saver skill as instrumentation, not a one-time cleanup.