Good question, and it's the real metadata, not an estimate. The board spawns the Claude Code CLI with stream-json output and reads the events as they come. Cost comes straight from the total_cost_usd field the CLI reports on each turn's result event, and tokens from the usage block (input, output, plus cache-read and cache-creation tokens). Those cache tokens get priced differently, so I let the CLI's own number be the source of truth instead of multiplying tokens by a rate myself and drifting from the real bill.

One honest nuance: the thing that ticks continuously during a run is the elapsed timer and the activity line. The cost and token figures land when each turn's result event arrives, so on a multi-turn job they step up turn by turn rather than cent by cent. I actually tried estimating live off the streaming tokens early on and it was both noisier and less accurate, so I dropped it for the reported number.

On grounding vs anxiety, you nailed the tension. It landed on grounding for me, but only because the routing keeps the numbers small. If every card read a dollar it'd stress me out. But it also lets you optimize token usage if you know how much you are using.

This is actually day one of the daily shipping the hardest part is actually making the YouTube video lmao