{"type":"post","id":"codex-spends-thousands-of-tokens-on-the-default-fa4d7a","slug":"codex-spends-thousands-of-tokens-on-the-default-fa4d7a","title":"Codex spends thousands of tokens on the default skill catalog before the first user message","description":"An analysis of 12 Codex sessions found roughly 33,000 tokens in the first call of three fresh sessions before the user typed anything.","retrieval_nugget":"An analysis of 12 Codex sessions found roughly 33,000 tokens in the first call of three fresh sessions before the user typed anything. The author’s measurements point to frequently read skill bodies and tool output—not skill descriptions—as more practical targets for reducing context use, a distinction that matters when teams tune agent workflows.","published_at":"2026-11-10","updated_at":"2026-11-10","record_date":"2026-11-10","date_kind":"published_at","topics":["codex"],"entities":["Codex","Codex Token Xray","lucianLabs"],"related_patterns":["agent-economics-moves-to-completed-work"],"novelty_label":"new_fact","what_changed":null,"prior_refs":[],"source_url":"https://lucianlabs.dev/en/notes/codex-token-xray-sessions","source_urls":["https://lucianlabs.dev/en/notes/codex-token-xray-sessions"],"schema_version":"newruntime-agent-readable-v0.2","stable_id":"post:codex-spends-thousands-of-tokens-on-the-default-fa4d7a","status":"published","visuals":[],"editor":{"role":"editor","name":"Andrey Reshetnikov","profile":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.md","profile_json":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.json","same_as":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/reshetnikov1/","https://t.me/lapetuse"]},"routes":{"html":"https://newruntime.com/posts/codex-spends-thousands-of-tokens-on-the-default-fa4d7a/","markdown":"https://newruntime.com/posts/codex-spends-thousands-of-tokens-on-the-default-fa4d7a.md","json":"https://newruntime.com/posts/codex-spends-thousands-of-tokens-on-the-default-fa4d7a.json"},"markdown_url":"https://newruntime.com/posts/codex-spends-thousands-of-tokens-on-the-default-fa4d7a.md","next_reads":[{"type":"topic","path":"/topics/codex/","url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/codex/","title":"Codex","reason":"Explore the codex topic hub.","media_type":"text/html","markdown_url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/codex.md","json_url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/codex.json"},{"type":"collection","path":"/posts/","url":"https://newruntime.com/posts/","title":"Field Notes","reason":"Open the latest editorial analysis.","media_type":"text/html","json_url":"https://newruntime.com/posts.json"},{"type":"collection","path":"/sources/","url":"https://newruntime.com/sources/","title":"Sources","reason":"See the original sources this archive cites.","media_type":"text/html"}]}