context-budget-optimizer

# Context Budget Optimizer

**Framework: The Token Efficiency Matrix**
*Worth $200/hr consultant time. Yours for $19.*

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## What This Skill Does

Audits your agent's token usage across every context layer, identifies where you're burning budget on bloat, and produces a 3-week cost reduction roadmap with concrete implementation steps.

**Problem it solves:** Power users hitting $200-500/month in AI costs often have 60-70% waste baked into their context. Most of it is invisible: stale files in system prompts, redundant skill loading, oversized memory files, wrong model choices. The Token Efficiency Matrix makes the waste visible and rankable.

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## The Token Efficiency Matrix

A 4-quadrant audit tool that scores every context element by **cost** (token weight) and **ROI** (value delivered per token). High cost + low ROI = cut first.

### The Matrix

```
                    HIGH ROI
                       │
          KEEP         │      OPTIMIZE
       (High ROI,      │   (High ROI,
        Low Cost)      │    High Cost)
                       │
LOW COST ──────────────┼────────────────── HIGH COST
                       │
          AUDIT        │       CUT
       (Low ROI,       │   (Low ROI,
        Low Cost)      │    High Cost)
                       │
                    LOW ROI
```

**Action by quadrant:**
- **KEEP:** Don't touch. It's working efficiently.
- **OPTIMIZE:** Compress or lazy-load. Value is there, just expensive.
- **AUDIT:** Review quarterly. Low cost so not urgent, but ROI should be questioned.
- **CUT:** Kill immediately. You're paying for nothing.

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## Phase 1: Context Inventory

**Before scoring, map everything that's in your agent's context.**

### Context Layers to Audit

```
Layer A: System Prompt / SOUL.md / Identity files
Layer B: Active skills (loaded per session)
Layer C: Memory files (MEMORY.md, daily notes)
Layer D: Project files injected at startup
Layer E: Tool outputs / MCP responses in context
Layer F: Chat history (conver...