Transparency around tokens use

[isidorn]

We get a lot of user feedback about missing transparency around tokens used (and no transparency around rate limits).
As a step 1, I think we should introduce some UI affordance that tells the user how many tokens they are about to consume (have consumed so far in the session).

LM Studio has nice affordance that shows token use after every message, and the text input also shows how much tokens the current input consumes. Below the input is a simple tokens N / MAX

Zed simply shows an affordance in the title area, which is very minimalistic but I believe gets the job done.

fyi @justschen @bpasero @jo-oikawa

[isidorn]

Another benefit of showing tokens is to make it clearer to the user when we start summarization. For example the token count at top could change colour / some decoration to indicate summarization will kick-in.
Also hover should explain to the user that starting a new chat is a good idea to more precisely control context. We want shorter chats with less context (faster, more capacity efficent)

fyi @joaomoreno

[nimoalr]

This feature will also be really helpful to understand how many tokens are being used by MCP tools responses, looking forward to this improvement! 🙌

[isidorn]

Claude code nicely shows when it is about to summarize

[OrenMe]

this is a much needed feature, I think the major part of developers action is to make sure context is correct and doesn't overflow
Having the ability to clearly see token usage in numbers and percentage will be very useful
Seeing the culprit of this - e.g. seeing chat context vs system prompt vs tools will allow user to understand he needs to either revise and reduce tools maybe, create a chatmode or simply start a new session
Also maybe a gateway to another feature of having ability to start new session with some context of exiting one and having the ability to see and confirm or tweak this session summarization before opening the new session
Bonus points - be able to link somehow the sessions so user can iterate between them

[isidorn]

@OrenMe thanks for the feedback

@kkbrooks @justschen I am going to go ahead and assign this to July since I see it on the plan. I am happy to brainstorm on this whenever you want.