# Claude Code's agent status line — a test says it used 16% of spend

> A one-line progress label for each background agent re-sends that agent's whole transcript to the model about every 30 seconds.

- Org: Flamerix AI
- Date: 2026-10-28
- Category: article
- Source: https://gist.github.com/flamerix-ai/c3905705cc4205e5de3011fa2e74efce
- Canonical page: https://ai-tldr.dev/releases/flamerix-claude-code-agent-summary-tokens/

Flamerix AI measured Claude Code's agent_summary calls, which write a 3-5 word status for each background agent, at 16.4% of spend in its own week. A Claude Code engineer put the average at about 2% and promised a cheaper mode.

## What it is

Flamerix AI's write-up says Claude Code's agent_summary feature, on by default since 2.1.232, sends each working background agent's full transcript to the agent's own model, usually Opus, about every 30 seconds. The model only answers with a 3-5 word status for the agents panel. In Flamerix's team, those calls were 16.4% of spend and 19.7% of API requests in the week before they blocked them.

## How it works

The measurement grouped Claude Code's OpenTelemetry api_request events by query_source; the summary calls do not appear in session logs on disk. With no setting to switch the feature off, the gist ships a Bun preload script (no-agent-summary.js, MIT) that replaces the summary timer with an inert one, so the panel status stops updating. The author warns it can break silently after an update.

## Why it matters

Teams that run many background agents pay for these calls at Opus rates, and an open GitHub issue from August with four user measurements reports 18-26%. On Hacker News, a Claude Code team member (edwinarbus) said the typical share is about 2% of cost at API list prices (about 6% in the terminal), that a fix for summaries missing the prompt cache shipped in 2.1.311+, and that a cheaper mode using a smaller model is in the works.

## Who it's for

Claude Code users running background agents

## Links

- [The Write-Up](https://gist.github.com/flamerix-ai/c3905705cc4205e5de3011fa2e74efce)
- [GitHub Issue](https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/86879)
- [HN Discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50284255)