Measure Your Own Codex Token Burn: Orchestrator+Subagents vs Single Agent

Melvin Vivas · X post · 2026-09-10 · Open on X

Topics: AI Dev Tools & Productivity, AI Agents, Tool Use & MCP, LLMOps, Deployment & Monitoring · Level: intermediate

Summary

Melvin Vivas logged his Codex usage and asked ChatGPT to analyze it. For him, an Astra orchestrator with Luna subagents was cheaper than a single Astra agent at high/xhigh. His main lesson is to take your own measurements, because the two setups were used on different projects.

Key points

• Log your own token usage and burn rate, then have an LLM such as ChatGPT analyze it.
• For him, Astra (orchestrator) + Luna (subagents) was cheaper.
• The comparison isn't apples to apples: the orchestrator setup was a greenfield build (local-evals), while Astra high/xhigh was used to add features to an existing app (Coworker).
• Pick the workflow that your own measurements support; it's your tokens.

Resources mentioned

• donvito/local-evals · repo · github.com · free
  Eval app that runs locally and tests local models or any OpenAI-compatible API on JSON extraction and tool calling.
  Also in: Melvin Vivas's open-source AI tools, built with Codex (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), local-evals: A Local LLM Eval App Built by Codex Subagents (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Local Evals: Open-Source App for Evaluating Local or OpenAI-Compatible Models (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
• Coworker (donvito/coworker) · repo · github.com · free
  The creator's local-first desktop app where you pick an AI coworker and have it produce work such as invoices as finished PDFs.
  Also in: Claude Opus 5.5 for Video Making: Creator's Showcase Thread (Coworker) (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Coworker: free open-source desktop AI coworker app (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Coworker: Open-Source Desktop App for AI Agents (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Using Devin AI to Test the Coworker Desktop App on Windows (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 38 more
• ChatGPT · tool · chatgpt.com · free · recommended by both Bashiri Smith & Melvin Vivas
  OpenAI's AI assistant (web, desktop and mobile apps), used for chat, coding, writing and image generation.
  Also in: Sign in with ChatGPT: Setting Usage Limits for Each App (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Dots Demo: A Voice AI Agent Handling Travel Booking and Feedback Triage (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), ChatGPT Can Commit Code Directly to Your GitHub Repo (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), OpenAI Dots: Agents Inside ChatGPT That Debug, Fix, and Open PRs (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 23 more

Try this

• Log your Codex usage (burn rate) for each setup and compare them yourself before picking a workflow.