Uncounted savings

Savings the ledger can't see

The blue figures on the statusline count one kind of saving: the work PA3's helpers kept out of your context, measured request by request. PA3's install also turns off two Claude Code features that spend tokens PA3 has no use for: the Task tools and the session recap. What that saves is real, but no figure includes it, because the ledger has nothing to count it from. Your actual saving is a little larger than the statusline says.

The Task tools

Claude Code's Task tools (TaskCreate, TaskUpdate, TaskList and TaskGet) let Claude keep a to-do list inside a session. Every call and its result is written into the conversation, Claude Code adds reminders about the list as the session goes on, and all of it is re-read with every later request.

PA3 already keeps that list outside the conversation: the phase plan's task table, a short summary for each finished task, and the running task on the statusline. So the machine install turns the Task tools off for your account (todoFeatureEnabled: false, the one setting it changes even when you had set it yourself), and the repository install does the same in each repository's .claude/settings.json. The install also removes a CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TODO_TOOLS value from your settings' env block, because it would bring the tools back.

Recaps

When you come back to the terminal after stepping away, Claude Code shows a one-line recap of the session so far. It makes the recap in the background once the terminal has been unfocused for at least three minutes after a turn, and a PA3 session spends long stretches waiting on experts while you are away. Each recap is a request billed to your plan, and none of them appears in the session's transcript, which is what the ledger reads. In two sessions measured while PA3 was designed, the requests missing from the transcripts, nearly all of them recaps, came to 2.7 % and 4.5 % of what the sessions cost (97.3 % and 95.5 % of each session's billed cost appeared in its transcripts; the ledger design's reconciliation, 2026-09-12).

PA3's work does not need them: the statusline and the task summaries already say where things stand. The repository install turns recaps off in each repository it sets up (awaySummaryEnabled: false), and the machine install ends by reminding you to turn off Session recap in /config, which covers every project.

Both installs also turn off one smaller thing of the same kind, unless you have set it yourself: the running token count Claude Code otherwise adds to each request (CLAUDE_CODE_TOTAL_TOKENS_REMINDER=off).

Why no figure counts them

Every blue figure is measured: tokens that existed in a helper's context and stayed out of yours (what the savings figures mean). These savings leave nothing to measure. With the Task tools off, their calls and reminders never happen; a recap that is never made is never billed. Counting them would mean estimating what a session with those features on would have spent, and PA3 keeps estimates out of its headline figures, for the same reason it keeps the replay apart from them. They come on top of what the statusline shows.