Vibe Coding
Pattern: Token Cost Moved From Billing Concern to Runtime Instrumentation
In two days: Claude Code added a `/cost` prompt-cache line with hit ratio and warm/cold plus a `prompt_cache` status-line object and a `rate_limits.spend_limit` field; Codex started counting nested subagent tokens toward root goal budgets; qwen-code shipped a Web Shell session token usage panel and an OpenTelemetry span for context usage; Kilo Code let you pick a cheaper model just for compaction. Cost is being exposed as a live signal an agent loop can read and act on, not a monthly invoice. The builder move is to put cache hit ratio on a status line now, because a cache regression is invisible without it.
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