Claude Code JSONL · local session audit
Find the Claude token cost hiding in agent retries
Drop one local Claude Code session. See public API-rate cost, exact repeated attempts, recovery work and suspected loops—without uploading the session.
- Provider usage
- No account
- No upload
Local input
Choose one session JSONL
Usually found under ~/.claude/projects/<project>/<session-id>.jsonl.
Claude Code session
Read in this tab; filename and session id are never reported.
Tool arguments and results are matched locally, then discarded from the report.
Reading paid assistant steps…
Agent spend forensics
One ledger, three evidence levels
- API-rate session total
- —
- Exact repeated attempts
- —
- Recovery work
- —
- Suspected loops
- —
Provider tokens, public list prices—not a subscription invoice.
Same normalized tool + arguments on adjacent paid steps.
Calls after a tool error. Paid, but not labelled waste.
Three repeated signatures. Pagination and polling can be legitimate.
What this can and cannot proveRead before acting
- No prompt, tool name, arguments, result, filename, path or session id enters the copied report.
- Repeated signatures prove repetition, not that the repetition was unnecessary.
- Dollar totals use public API rates and do not represent Claude Pro or Max subscription billing.
Why this is different from an observability dashboard
No SDK, account or ingest pipeline is required. The artifact you already have is enough for a postmortem, and it never leaves the browser. This first release intentionally reads one Claude Code session format; generic OTel ingestion is not implied.
What to do with the three columns
Start with exact adjacent repeats, inspect recovery steps in context, then treat suspected loops as a queue for human review. Never add all three into a single “waste” headline.
Where the evidence comes from
Claude Code documents local sessions as JSONL under your project directory. Its own usage view uses standard public API prices as a local estimate; subscription users should not read that figure as a separate bill. See Anthropic’s session documentation and cost documentation.