Your docs aren't burning your tokens — your tooling is
People ask me if writing docs like PRDs and design reviews burns too many tokens.
They think the process is too heavy. They think letting AI write code directly is cheaper.
They are wrong.
Having many docs and burning many tokens are two different things. Docs sit in your folders. They do not burn tokens on their own. Your bad habits burn tokens.
The real token killers are:
- Context bloat: You keep one conversation running all day. You pay for thousands of tokens of old history every time you ask a new question.
- Vague prompts: You do not say what you want. The AI guesses. You spend three rounds doing what one clear prompt could do.
- Poor tool usage: You make the AI read your whole repo when you only change one file.
The biggest cost is rework.
If you do not write a PRD, the AI might misread your requirements. You then spend more tokens rewriting, tearing things down, and fixing broken parts.
A PRD is a one-time cost. Rework is a compounding debt.
Use these methods to save tokens instead of cutting docs:
- Trim context: Clear your chat history often.
- Tier your models: Use cheap, small models for searching and reading. Use strong models only for hard thinking and coding.
- Read files precisely: Only feed the AI what is relevant to the current change.
- Use prompt caching: This lowers your costs significantly.
- Use a token proxy: Squeeze the output of routine commands.
- Parallelize: Run independent tasks at the same time to reduce round-trips.
Docs are assets. They help you audit decisions. When the AI reads a good doc, it understands the "why" immediately. This saves tokens.
If you want to save, save on how you use your tools. Do not save by skipping the documentation.
Source: https://dev.to/kanfu-panda/your-docs-arent-burning-your-tokens-your-tooling-is-58ck
Optional learning community: https://t.me/GyaanSetuAi