Don't pride yourself on minimal tokens — your time is a cost too, developer argues

brandon_galang · x · 2026-11-05

Developer Brandon Galang on the real tradeoff in agent token spend:

Spending an hour doing something manually to save a few dollars in tokens means your hour is part of the cost—minimal token use is nothing to be proud of.
But tokenmaxxing costs too: it wastes attention on synthesizing context and boilerplate, and lets slop into your work.
Beginners should use far more tokens than feels appropriate, since they haven't internalized how much can be delegated to agents.
Optimization order: first look at what you still do manually (delegate it), then cut the high-consumption runs that return nothing useful.

The currency is your time and attention, not tokens.

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