A 3-step agent cost me $4.20. agenttrace showed me the O(n ) tool call hiding in plain sight.
A recent experience with a 3-step agent revealed unexpected costs due to inefficient tool calls. The author utilized agenttrace to analyze and optimize the process, reducing the cost significantly. The issue stemmed from the model's handling of input tokens, which led to excessive calls and increased expenses.
- ▪The initial cost for a 3-step agent was $4.20, which was much higher than expected.
- ▪Agenttrace helped identify that the cite-check step was making nine calls instead of one due to the way input tokens were handled.
- ▪After optimizing the process, the cost dropped to 14 cents, demonstrating a significant improvement in efficiency.
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try { if(localStorage) { let currentUser = localStorage.getItem('current_user'); if (currentUser) { currentUser = JSON.parse(currentUser); if (currentUser.id === 3915555) { document.getElementById('article-show-container').classList.add('current-user-is-article-author'); } } } } catch (e) { console.error(e); } Mukunda Rao Katta Posted on May 21 A 3-step agent cost me $4.20. agenttrace showed me the O(n ) tool call hiding in plain sight. #hermesagent #ai #llm #observability I ran a small agent. Three steps. One web search, one summarize, one cite-check. I had budgeted maybe 12 cents. The bill at the end of the run was $4.20. I knew something was off but the per-call invoice line items were not telling me anything useful. They were just a list of messages.create calls.
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