cctop / Panel guide / Agents & MCP
§6Agents & MCPNoteSubagents have their own context; their tokens are not in panel 2.
Agents & MCP
Subagents and MCP server processes running alongside the main thread, and what each is costing.
Agent state
reads as
◐ Explore find render call sites 0:41
- What it means
- At a glance: is a subagent still running, finished cleanly, or stuck.
- What to do
- A failed state with nothing following for a while is worth checking on directly rather than assuming it will recover.
- Measured
- enum · from the subagent's transcript · hook events (after cctop install) · exact · how
Agent cost
- What it means
- Each subagent's own calls priced from the table, on top of the tokens — the figure the agents view sorts by.
- What to do
- Read it with `ret`: a costly agent that returned little is the one to rethink.
- Advisor
- A48 Agent waste
- Measured
- USD · from the subagent's transcript · the price table · always an estimate · how
Agent status
- What it means
<status> of the agent's <task-notification> (completed / failed / killed), by whichever of Claude Code's three deliveries it came — a user line, a queue-operation enqueue or a queued_command attachment; absent until it lands- Measured
- enum · from the transcript · exact · how
Agent returned
- What it means
- Length of the notification's
<result> ÷ 4 (a synchronous Agent result's content ÷ 4): what came back into the session; absent until a result exists, 0 for an empty one
- Measured
- tokens · from the transcript · always an estimate · how
Agent waste
- What it means
- Money that went to agents whose work did not come back — failed, killed, an empty result, or gone quiet — with the reason word beside the dollars.
- What to do
- Enter on the panel opens the agents view; before launching another of the same kind, look at why the last ones did not return.
- Advisor
- A48 Agent waste
- Measured
- USD · from the transcript · the subagent's transcript · hook events (after cctop install) · the price table · always an estimate · how
Agents waste
- What it means
- The session's wasted agent spend summed by reason: what the coach's A48 fires on.
- What to do
- Above a dollar and a quarter of the agents' spend, stop launching and look at the rows.
- Advisor
- A48 Agent waste
- Measured
- USD · from the transcript · the subagent's transcript · hook events (after cctop install) · the price table · always an estimate · how
Cold starts
- What it means
- Agents (forks excluded) whose first call wrote more cache than it read, and the cache-write dollars of those first calls
- Measured
- count · from the subagent's transcript · the price table · ≈ for the dollars · how
Return ratio
- What it means
- Σ
agent_returned ÷ Σ agent output tokens: the share of what the agents wrote that came back
- Measured
- ratio · from the transcript · the subagent's transcript · always an estimate · how
Workflow failed
- What it means
- Agents of a workflow run with a
failed journal entry, by phase, each with one cause from its last API-error line (apiErrorStatus, error token) and its call count
- Measured
- count · from the subagent's transcript · exact · how
Workflow failed $
- What it means
- Σ
agent_cost of the run's failed agents
- Measured
- USD · from the subagent's transcript · the price table · always an estimate · how
Workflow waste
- What it means
- Σ
agent_waste of the run's agents ÷ the run's priced cost
- Measured
- % · from the transcript · the subagent's transcript · hook events (after cctop install) · the price table · always an estimate · how
Workflow overhead
- What it means
- The run's priced cost ÷ the main thread's priced responses between the run's start and its end (or now)
- Measured
- ratio · from the transcript · the subagent's transcript · the price table · always an estimate · how
Workflow cold starts
- What it means
- Cache-write $ of the first call of the run's cold-started agents ÷ the run's priced cost
- Measured
- % · from the subagent's transcript · the price table · always an estimate · how
Agent tokens
reads as
92k opus
- What it means
- Subagents have their own context and their own cost, entirely separate from the main thread's numbers.
- What to do
- An expensive subagent doing simple search or summary work is a candidate to move to a cheaper model.
- Advisor
- A14 Subagent model choice
- Measured
- tokens · from the subagent's transcript · exact · how
MCP calls
reads as
9 calls · p95 2.1s
- What it means
- How much an MCP server is actually used, in raw call count.
- What to do
- Cross-reference with last call: a server whose definitions sit in every turn but shows no recent calls is pure overhead worth disabling.
- Advisor
- A07 Idle MCP servers and plugins
- Measured
- count · from the transcript · exact · how
Workflow runs
- What it means
subagents/workflows/<run>/journal.jsonl: agents launched, finished (result) and failed per run; the run's agents are scanned like the top-level ones- Measured
- count · from the subagent's transcript · exact · how
Spawn depth
- What it means
- Deepest
spawnDepth among the agents (Claude Code caps it at 3)
- Measured
- count · from the subagent's transcript · exact · how
Teammates
- What it means
- Members of
~/.claude/teams/<team>/config.json when this session leads the team
- Measured
- list · from D12 · exact · how
Teammate cost
- What it means
- The teammate's own
cost-state.totalCostUSD plus its priced calls after that line; all of them priced while it has none; — with no transcript when its file is not found
- Measured
- USD · from D2c · Claude Code's own cost record · the price table · ≈ while it runs or after its ledger's moment · how
Teammate context
- What it means
- The teammate's current context: the input of its last API call, as Panel 1 computes the lead's
- Measured
- tokens · from D2c · exact · how
Teammate tokens
- What it means
- Deduplicated usage of the teammate's transcript (one figure per
message.id), as the lead's Panel 2
- Measured
- tokens · from D2c · exact · how
Teammate turns
- What it means
- Turns of the teammate's transcript, human / machine: a
<teammate-message> starts a machine turn
- Measured
- count · from D2c · exact · how
Teammate state
- What it means
- active (
isActive: true in the team config) · recent (no config; a line in the last 5 min) · ended (its file ends with a cost-state, or isActive: false) · gone (no ledger, no config, no recent line) · missing (known from the config or a spawn, no transcript found)
- Measured
- enum · from D12 · D2c · exact · how
Teammate waste
- What it means
- The cost of the teammate's current turn under one reason:
idle (alive, no API call for 5 min, no tool call unanswered in its transcript) or errored (its last response was an API-error line and nothing followed for 60 s)
- Measured
- USD · from D2c · the price table · always an estimate · how
Team waste
- What it means
- Σ
teammate_waste over the team
- Measured
- USD · from D2c · the price table · always an estimate · how
MCP needs auth
- What it means
deferred_tools_delta.needsAuthMcpServers / failedMcpServers from the transcript- Measured
- list · from the transcript · exact · how