estimate-cost

name	estimate-cost
description	Compute $ cost estimate for an experiment notebook without dispatching to Modal.

estimate-cost

Return the total Modal $ cost an experiment would spend if run, without actually dispatching anything. Used by run-experiment to gate on cost_gate_usd in .github/experiments.yaml, and by humans who want a sanity check before kicking off a long run.

How

Dry-run mode short-circuits every ensure_* call in the notebook: instead of launching Modal, the library records the estimated cost and returns a sentinel object with placeholder data so analysis cells can still execute.

HELICO_DRY_RUN=1 uv run python scripts/pm/run_experiment.py \
    experiments/exp<N>_<slug>/

Output lines to look for:

[helico.experiment] ensure_bench_run('protenix-v1-default') — dry-run (~$23.70)
[helico.experiment] ensure_training_run('baseline') — dry-run (~$379.20)

Sum the ~$X values manually or parse them out of the output; that's the total.

Gate rules

• Threshold in .github/experiments.yaml as cost_gate_usd (default $100).
• Total estimate < gate → go.
• Total estimate ≥ gate → stop and ask the user for explicit approval before proceeding.

What's NOT counted

• Local notebook execution time
• Image-build / cold-start time on Modal (first use per image version adds ~5-10 min; subsequent runs reuse cached images)
• helico-publish HF upload time (negligible)