dots-workstation-llm-cost-advisor

name	dots-workstation-llm-cost-advisor
description	WHAT — Recommend the most cost-effective LLM provider for a given task type. Shows estimated cost per run across available providers and integrates with dots-devcompanion llm-status to show what is actually available.
metadata	{"author":"agentic-workstation","version":"1.0","tags":["llm","cost","provider","optimization"]}

LLM Cost Advisor (WHAT)

Recommend the right provider for the task at hand — balancing quality, cost, and privacy.

When to use

• User asks "which model should I use for X?"
• Before scheduling expensive loops (pr-babysitter, ci-sweeper)
• When dev-companion jobs are unexpectedly expensive
• When choosing between local and cloud providers for sensitive work

Out of scope

• Does NOT configure providers — that's done via env vars and dots-loadenv
• Does NOT run LLM calls — it advises, the runner executes

Workflow

Step 1 — Check available providers:

dots-devcompanion llm-status

Step 2 — Classify the task:

Task type	Recommended tier	Why
Interactive code review, planning, debugging	Claude Sonnet / GPT-4o	Reasoning quality matters
Batch labeling, summarization, triage	Claude Haiku / GPT-4o-mini	High volume, lower stakes
Private/sensitive codebase work	Ollama or OpenCode	Stays local, zero cost
Loop L1 (observation only)	Haiku / GPT-4o-mini	Low stakes, runs daily
Loop L2 (PR creation)	Sonnet	Creates external artifacts
Loop L3 (unattended)	Sonnet + verifier	Autonomous — quality critical

Step 3 — Show cost estimate:

Provider	Model	Est. per run	Monthly (1/day)	Monthly (96/day)
Anthropic	claude-3-5-sonnet	~$0.05	~$1.50	~$144
Anthropic	claude-3-haiku	~$0.005	~$0.15	~$14.40
OpenAI	gpt-4o	~$0.04	~$1.20	~$115
OpenAI	gpt-4o-mini	~$0.003	~$0.09	~$8.64
Ollama	(local)	$0	$0	$0
OpenCode	(local)	$0	$0	$0

Estimates based on ~2K input + ~1K output tokens per typical run.

Step 4 — Recommend with reasoning:

Give a clear recommendation: "For daily CNA issue triage (L1, observation only), use claude-3-haiku — ~$0.15/month vs $1.50/month for Sonnet, with no quality difference for labeling and summarization tasks."

Budget gate reminder

If the user is setting up loops, remind them to add limits.max_cost_usd to their job definitions to enable the runner's hard budget enforcement:

"limits": {
  "timeout_sec": 300,
  "max_cost_usd": 0.50
}

Anti-patterns

• Do not recommend cloud providers for repos marked confidential — suggest Ollama/OpenCode
• Do not recommend Haiku for L3 unattended loops — quality failures cascade
• Do not skip the llm-status check — recommend only available providers