Developer builds local tool to break down AI coding costs after $1,278 project bill

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A developer discovered their side project cost $1,278 in API tokens across 542 prompts and 36 hours of work, prompting them to build an open-source tool called Bough. Bough reads the session transcript files that AI coding agents like Claude Code and Codex automatically save to a user's local machine, then visualises spending by task and sitting. The tool requires no account, API key, or internet connection, and is installable via a single command on Mac, Linux, or Windows. One key insight the tool surfaced is that most token costs come from the model re-reading prior conversation context on every reply, not from generating new code. The developer notes the dollar figures reflect published API rates, so users on flat subscriptions can treat the number as a measure of what their plan saved them.

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