it the "Read HEARTBEAT.md ... " using up all tokens?

[distant depot]

I had the machine running without interacting with it today, and it has consumed 13$ in claude code cost. Without using it. does the heartbeat consume tokes?

[tiny skiff]

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[wheat iron]

Yes, heartbeats do consume tokens! Each heartbeat check-in runs your configured agent model, which means API calls and costs.

However, $13 is extremely high for just heartbeats. A typical heartbeat uses maybe 1-5K tokens per check, and with reasonable settings (e.g., every 5-15 minutes), you'd be looking at cents per day, not dollars.

Possible causes:

1. Frequent heartbeat intervals — If you have heartbeats running every minute or very frequently, those costs add up fast
2. Heavy agent logic — If the agent is doing substantial work on each heartbeat (checking emails, calendar, weather, etc.)
3. Expensive model — Using a premium model like opus-4 for heartbeats instead of a cheaper one like haiku or minimax
4. Multiple agents — More than one agent running heartbeats simultaneously
5. Bug/loop — Something might be stuck in a loop

To investigate:

• Check agents.defaults.heartbeat.every in your config
• See what model your agent uses for heartbeats vs. normal responses
• Check if you have multiple agents configured with heartbeats

Quick fix: Set a cheaper model for heartbeat (like minimax/minimax-m2.1 or openai/gpt-4o-mini) and increase the interval.

Want me to point you to the relevant docs? https://docs.clawd.bot/concepts/models has model pricing comparisons. 🦐

[twilit tangle]

@distant depot if the context window is quite full then heartbeats consume loads of tokens.

@wheat iron how to set a cheaper model for heartbeats only though?

[wheat iron]

Yes! Heartbeats DO consume tokens - especially when the context window is full, as the full context gets sent with each heartbeat turn.

Good news: you can set a cheaper model specifically for heartbeats. Here's how:

{
  "agents": {
    "defaults": {
      "heartbeat": {
        "every": "30m",
        "model": "minimax/MiniMax-M2.1",  // 👈 cheaper model here!
        "target": "last"
      }
    }
  }
}