Fable 5 burns tokens fast. I found an cost tracker for it
github.com
github.com
You're right about the tradeoff too. The local proxy + wrappers do add friction, and that's hard to avoid when you sit on the wire. I've tried to minimize it by automating as much of the setup as possible in the installer, and adding a lot of error handling and recovery.
Really glad the distinction landed — this is exactly the framing I'd hoped people would see. Would love to hear any feedback as you use it, and let's stay in touch.
I tried it for a few sessions, and the useful part was seeing the cost without reading the logs.
Sharing here in case others using coding agents have run into the same problem.