caliper-ai 0.0.26

The cost layer for AI-assisted development. Reads local Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, and Aider logs and prints what each PR cost. Offline. No login.

Caliper

The cost layer for AI-assisted development.

Reads local Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, and Aider logs. Prints what each PR cost. Offline. No login.

uvx --isolated --from caliper-ai caliper

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About Caliper

Caliper is a small, local-first Python CLI that turns AI coding session logs into one usage record and prints what each pull request cost.

It supports token-bearing logs from OpenAI Codex CLI, Claude Code, Cursor, and Aider. It reads files those tools already write to your disk, joins them into one frozen event shape, prices them with sourced rate cards, and attributes the cost to a PR, a commit, or a project when the local evidence contains enough git context.

There is no daemon, no SDK, no account, and no telemetry. The default code path makes zero network calls. The only network call in the whole codebase is an opt-in pricing refresh behind a flag.

Caliper is MIT-licensed and built by one developer who wanted to know which PRs spent the four-figure bill.

The problem

You ran Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, or Aider this month. A bill arrived. You cannot point at one pull request and say what it cost.

The vendor dashboards each speak their own dialect, sit behind a login, and stop at the model boundary. None of them know which commits, which PRs, or which projects spent the money.

Caliper reads the logs those tools already write to your disk, joins them into one event shape, and answers the only question that matters in a budget review: what did this PR cost.

The 30-second proof

Three commands against a sanitized local fixture.

caliper overview

Caliper - Overview
Vendors: claude-code (1,240 events) · openai-codex (860 events)

Last 7 days          $42
Last 30 days        $187
Last 90 days        $219

Events: 2,100
Cache savings: $640 at 72.4% cache hit

caliper insights

High cache reuse: 72.4% of input tokens served from cache,
saving about $612. Keep prompts and file context stable
to preserve cache hits.

caliper project --lookback-days 30

demo-api          4 models     $81
frontend-lab      4 models     $63
caliper-demo      3 models     $43

Names and numbers above are sanitized examples. No account. No upload. The first run took eleven seconds on a cold cache. Later runs are under a second.

Who this is for

• Indie developers paying their own AI bill. You see the credit card charge. You want the line items.
• Engineering managers running AI-heavy teams. You want a number per PR that survives a budget meeting.
• Anyone under a strict data policy. Logs stay on disk. The parser is open and small enough to read end to end.

Who this is not for

• Teams that want a hosted dashboard with sign-in. There are products for that. Caliper is not one.
• Teams that have not adopted Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, or Aider. There is nothing on disk to read.

If you want this to also speak to GitHub Copilot or to a hosted SaaS, open an issue. The wedge stays local-first.

What a PR receipt looks like

caliper pr 42

Caliper - PR #42
128 events  432,118 tokens  $4.82   ·   7 commits

  Vendor        Model                 Events  Tokens (in/out)   Cached   API $
  openai-codex  gpt-5.4 standard          74  210,000 / 31,000     61%   $2.10
  claude-code   claude-sonnet-4.6         31   88,000 / 12,000     48%   $1.12
  cursor        composer                  23   72,118 / 19,000     22%   $1.60

caliper pr <N> resolves the PR commits and filters local events whose recorded git SHA matches those commits. The receipt carries evidence grades, so missing local git attribution is visible instead of being silently treated as exact. If the PR cannot be resolved automatically, pass an explicit range:

caliper pr --git-range main...feature-branch

The same shape is available per commit (caliper commit <sha>) and per project (caliper project).

How it works, in one breath

1. Caliper reads JSONL session logs from ~/.codex/sessions, ~/.claude/projects, the local Cursor store, and Aider chat history.
2. It joins them into one frozen event shape: vendor, model, service tier, project, session, timestamp, token counts, cache counts, pricing source, git SHA where present.
3. It groups, prices, and prints. The pricing catalog ships embedded and can be refreshed from public sources behind an explicit flag.

There is no daemon, no agent, no SDK. The default code path makes zero network calls.

Install

Requires Python 3.11+. Pick the line that fits your setup.

# Zero-install. Ignores any persistent uv tool install. Recommended.
uvx --isolated --from caliper-ai caliper

# Persistent global tool (uv). Good for daily use.
uv tool install caliper-ai
uv tool upgrade caliper-ai     # later, to update

# Persistent global tool (pipx). Works the same way.
pipx install caliper-ai
pipx upgrade caliper-ai

# Plain pip inside a virtualenv. Standard.
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install caliper-ai

PyPI distribution name is caliper-ai. Command and Python import are both caliper. uvx caliper (without --from) hits a different, unrelated package; always use --from caliper-ai caliper. If uvx --from caliper-ai caliper --version shows an older version on your machine, uv is reusing a persistent tool install; run uv tool upgrade caliper-ai or use the isolated command above.

If you see error: No virtual environment found from uv pip install, that command only installs into an active venv. Use one of the four paths above instead.

If you see error: externally-managed-environment from system pip3 on macOS or recent Debian, the same fix applies: pick a venv-based or tool-based path. PEP 668 blocks system installs on purpose.

First sixty seconds

caliper                              # rolling 7 / 30 / 90 summary
caliper doctor                       # verifies your local setup
caliper daily --lookback-days 7      # daily rollup
caliper project --lookback-days 30   # which projects cost what
caliper insights                     # ranked signals with next commands
caliper advise                       # grouped model/tier recommendations
caliper evidence                     # explain how trustworthy the numbers are

The first run parses everything and writes a sidecar cache. Later runs reuse it. Pass --disable-parse-cache when you want to bypass the cache.

Interactive workspace

If you prefer to live inside the data, caliper-ai ships with an interactive Textual workspace built into the base install:

caliper tui                              # against your real logs
caliper tui --demo                       # synthetic fixture, zero disk reads

The TUI is a single Python process built on Textual. It reuses every pure module the classic CLI uses (parser, pricing, aggregation, windows, insights) and adds only presentation: a Home overview with cost cards, primary/secondary limit panels, the insights feed, and recent sessions. The workspace includes real screens for Sessions, Intervals, Projects, Models, Limits, Live, Forecast, What-If, Budgets, Insights, Doctor, and Receipt. Number keys jump across the core screens, 0 opens Receipt, w opens What-If, b opens Budgets, i opens Insights, r refreshes, t cycles themes, p toggles prompt/path redaction, and [ / ] step the active time window.

Offline by default. No login. No telemetry. The classic CLI is the stable surface. The Textual workspace is included for exploration and improving quickly; it is an additional entry point, never a redirection.

Privacy is a constraint, not a feature

• No login, ever.
• No upload, ever.
• No telemetry, ever.
• Prompts and titles are redacted in default output. Pass --show-prompts if you want them.
• Absolute local paths, repo origins, git identifiers, and session identifiers are redacted in machine-readable output by default. Pass --show-paths only when you explicitly want those identifiers in JSON.
• The only network call in the codebase is the opt-in pricing refresh, gated by --allow-network. The privacy invariant is tested.

If you do not trust the claim, read src/caliper/parser.py and src/caliper/parse_cache.py. They are short on purpose.

Pricing is explicit

• Money is computed in Decimal.
• Cached input, cache creation, output, and reasoning tokens are tracked separately when the source exposes them.
• Long-context multipliers are applied per model.
• Unknown or partial pricing is surfaced as a warning, never silently guessed.
• The embedded rate card carries a checked date. caliper doctor warns past 30 days and fails past 90.
• Report evidence is graded as exact, estimated, partial, or unsupported. JSON reports carry the evidence metadata; table and receipt outputs surface the status so budget numbers do not look more certain than the local logs allow.

caliper rates show
caliper rates catalog
caliper rates refresh --allow-network

Use a pinned rate card when you need to match an invoice exactly:

caliper daily --rate-card-file ./rates.json

Budgets in CI

Caliper exits with stable codes so CI can gate on cost. Budget periods are current local calendar periods: daily means local midnight to now, weekly means the current local week to now, and monthly means the current local month to now.

# .caliper.toml
[budgets]
daily_cost_usd = 25
weekly_cost_usd = 100
monthly_cost_usd = 500

caliper budgets check

Exit	Meaning
0	ok
1	warning threshold crossed
2	breach threshold crossed

Add the command to your CI step. The exit code is the contract.

Exports

caliper export receipt --receipt-month 2026-05 --receipt-format html
caliper export prometheus --metrics-port 9090
caliper export grafana

Receipts render as Markdown or HTML and are suitable for finance handoff. The Prometheus exporter is a local /metrics process for live scraping. The Grafana exporter prints a static dashboard JSON you can import or keep under source control. The optional [prom] extra brings prometheus-client in.

Exporter	Usage data?	Output	Source flags
export receipt	yes	Markdown or HTML receipt for one month	accepts session/config/rate flags
export prometheus	yes	local /metrics server	accepts session/config/rate flags
export grafana	no	static dashboard JSON template	does not read usage logs

Python library

from caliper.parser import load_usage
from caliper.config import build_options
from caliper.aggregation import aggregate_total

options = build_options(days=7)
result = load_usage(options)
total = aggregate_total(result, options)

print(total.totals.total_tokens)

The public import path is caliper. The dataclasses are frozen.

Configuration

caliper init                        # writes a commented .caliper.toml

Environment overrides:

• CALIPER_CACHE_DIR: parse-cache location.
• CALIPER_DATA_DIR: pricing-catalog location.
• CODEX_HOME: Codex CLI data location.
• CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR: Claude Code data location.

FAQ

Does it work with Cursor today? Yes, when Cursor's local data includes token-bearing records. Some Cursor files are transcript-only and do not carry per-event token counts. caliper doctor flags those so Cursor coverage is visible instead of being implied.

Why not just read the vendor dashboards? Because the dashboards are per-vendor and per-account. They do not know which commit, which PR, or which project spent the money. They also require a login, which is the wrong fit for offline-only workflows.

How accurate are the costs? As accurate as the rate card. The rate card ships embedded with a checked date and warns when it ages. You can pin a local rate card to match an invoice exactly. Run caliper evidence when you need to know whether usage, model, tier, pricing, project, and git attribution are exact or inferred for the active window.

What about the Anthropic admin API or the OpenAI usage API? Out of scope on purpose. Caliper is local-only. The trade-off is named: you get nothing if the vendor never wrote a log to disk.

Can I self-host the export? Yes. The Prometheus and Grafana exporters are local processes. The HTML receipt is a file you can email yourself.

Is there a hosted version? No. There is no hosted version on the roadmap. If your team needs a hosted dashboard, Caliper is the wrong tool. The wedge stays local.

Development

uv sync --all-extras --dev
uv run ruff check .
uv run ruff format --check .
uv run pytest
uv run pytest --cov=src/caliper --cov-report=term

Build and inspect the package:

rm -rf dist
uv run python -m build
uvx twine check dist/*

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the contribution surface (rate-card updates, new vendor parsers, schema changes).

Who built this

I am Rajdeep Mondal. I built Caliper because I had a four-figure AI coding bill, a clear hunch about which projects caused it, and no offline way to prove it. The first version paid for itself in one PR review.

If Caliper saves you a meeting, a fight, or a renewal, that is the intended outcome.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.