Demo 34: Usage Metering

Overview

Usage Metering provides full visibility into token consumption across agents, tasks, users, and providers. Set credit budgets with automatic alerts at 80%, 95%, and 100% thresholds. Generate reports by provider, model, or task type, and produce chargeback summaries for departments. Available through both CLI commands and the 4-tab VibeUI panel.

Prerequisites

VibeCLI installed and on your PATH
At least one AI provider configured
For team/project budgets: VibeCody running in multi-user mode (optional)
For VibeUI: the desktop app running with the Usage Metering panel visible

Step-by-Step Walkthrough

1. Check Current Usage Status

View a summary of token consumption and budget utilization.

CLI:

vibecli --metering status

Example output:

Usage Metering Status
Period: March 2026 (Monthly)

Token Usage:
  Input tokens:    1,245,890
  Output tokens:     892,340
  Total tokens:    2,138,230

Budget: 5,000,000 tokens
Used:   2,138,230 (42.8%)
  [████████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░] 42.8%

Top Consumers:
  1. batch-ecommerce    892,000 tokens (41.7%)
  2. agent-refactor     456,200 tokens (21.3%)
  3. code-review        312,400 tokens (14.6%)

Alerts: None active

VibeUI:

Open the Usage Metering panel and select the Dashboard tab. The dashboard shows real-time token consumption, budget utilization bars, and a top-consumers ranking.

2. Configure Budgets

Set credit budgets scoped to a user, team, project, or globally. Specify the budget period and alert thresholds.

CLI:

vibecli --metering budget set \
  --owner user:alice \
  --limit 2000000 \
  --period monthly \
  --alert-warning 80 \
  --alert-critical 95 \
  --alert-limit 100

Example output:

Budget configured:
  Owner:    user:alice
  Limit:    2,000,000 tokens
  Period:   Monthly (resets March 1)
  Alerts:
    Warning       at 80%  (1,600,000 tokens)
    Critical      at 95%  (1,900,000 tokens)
    LimitReached  at 100% (2,000,000 tokens)

CLI (list all budgets):

vibecli --metering budget list

Example output:

Active Budgets:
  Owner             Limit        Period     Used      %
  user:alice        2,000,000    Monthly    892,000   44.6%
  team:platform     10,000,000   Monthly    3,200,000 32.0%
  project:ecommerce 5,000,000    Quarterly  2,138,230 42.8%
  global            50,000,000   Monthly    8,450,000 16.9%

VibeUI:

Switch to the Budgets tab. Click New Budget to create one. Select the owner type (User, Team, Project, Global), set the token limit, choose the period (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly), and configure alert thresholds.

3. Budget Periods

Budgets support four period types:

Period	Reset Cycle
Daily	Resets at midnight UTC
Weekly	Resets every Monday at midnight
Monthly	Resets on the 1st of each month
Quarterly	Resets Jan 1, Apr 1, Jul 1, Oct 1

4. Alert Thresholds

Three alert levels trigger notifications when budget usage crosses a threshold:

Alert Level	Default Threshold	Behavior
Warning	80%	Notification sent; operations continue
Critical	95%	Urgent notification; review recommended
LimitReached	100%	Operations paused; manual override available

CLI (view active alerts):

vibecli --metering alerts

Example output:

Active Alerts:
  [WARNING]  user:alice at 82.1% of monthly budget (1,642,000 / 2,000,000)
  [CRITICAL] project:legacy-migration at 96.3% of quarterly budget

VibeUI:

The Alerts tab shows all active and recent alerts with timestamps, owner details, and quick actions (increase budget, acknowledge, snooze).

5. Generate Reports

Produce detailed reports broken down by provider, model, task type, or time period.

CLI:

vibecli --metering report --period 2026-03 --group-by provider

Example output:

Usage Report: March 2026 (by Provider)
  Provider     Input Tokens   Output Tokens  Total       Cost Est.
  Anthropic    845,200        612,400        1,457,600   $21.86
  OpenAI       312,000        198,340        510,340     $5.10
  Ollama       88,690         81,600         170,290     $0.00 (local)
  Total        1,245,890      892,340        2,138,230   $26.96

CLI (report by model):

vibecli --metering report --period 2026-03 --group-by model

CLI (report by task type):

vibecli --metering report --period 2026-03 --group-by task-type

VibeUI:

In the Reports tab, select the date range and grouping dimension. Click Generate Report to view tables and charts. Export as CSV or PDF.

6. Chargeback Generation

Generate chargeback reports for departmental billing.

CLI:

vibecli --metering report --period 2026-03 --chargeback --group-by team

Example output:

Chargeback Report: March 2026
  Team          Tokens Used   Estimated Cost  Budget Remaining
  Platform      3,200,000     $48.00          6,800,000
  Data Eng      2,100,000     $31.50          7,900,000
  Mobile        1,450,000     $21.75          8,550,000
  DevOps          700,000     $10.50          9,300,000
  Total         7,450,000     $111.75

7. Per-Agent and Per-Task Tracking

Drill down into individual agent runs or tasks to see their exact token consumption.

CLI:

vibecli --metering status --agent batch-ecommerce --detail

Example output:

Agent: batch-ecommerce
  Tasks completed: 42
  Total tokens: 892,000
    Architect:  124,000 (13.9%)
    Frontend:   198,000 (22.2%)
    Backend:    234,000 (26.2%)
    Testing:    156,000 (17.5%)
    Other:      180,000 (20.2%)

Demo Recording JSON

{
  "demo_id": "34-usage-metering",
  "title": "Usage Metering",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "steps": [
    {
      "action": "cli_command",
      "command": "vibecli --metering status",
      "description": "View current token usage and budget utilization"
    },
    {
      "action": "cli_command",
      "command": "vibecli --metering budget set --owner user:alice --limit 2000000 --period monthly --alert-warning 80 --alert-critical 95 --alert-limit 100",
      "description": "Configure a monthly budget with alert thresholds"
    },
    {
      "action": "cli_command",
      "command": "vibecli --metering budget list",
      "description": "List all active budgets"
    },
    {
      "action": "cli_command",
      "command": "vibecli --metering alerts",
      "description": "View active budget alerts"
    },
    {
      "action": "cli_command",
      "command": "vibecli --metering report --period 2026-03 --group-by provider",
      "description": "Generate a usage report grouped by provider"
    },
    {
      "action": "cli_command",
      "command": "vibecli --metering report --period 2026-03 --chargeback --group-by team",
      "description": "Generate a chargeback report for departmental billing"
    },
    {
      "action": "cli_command",
      "command": "vibecli --metering status --agent batch-ecommerce --detail",
      "description": "Drill into per-agent token consumption"
    },
    {
      "action": "vibeui_interaction",
      "panel": "UsageMetering",
      "tab": "Dashboard",
      "description": "View real-time usage dashboard with top consumers"
    },
    {
      "action": "vibeui_interaction",
      "panel": "UsageMetering",
      "tab": "Budgets",
      "description": "Create and manage credit budgets by owner"
    },
    {
      "action": "vibeui_interaction",
      "panel": "UsageMetering",
      "tab": "Reports",
      "description": "Generate and export usage reports"
    },
    {
      "action": "vibeui_interaction",
      "panel": "UsageMetering",
      "tab": "Alerts",
      "description": "Review and manage budget alerts"
    }
  ]
}

What’s Next

Demo 31: Batch Builder – See how batch runs consume tokens at scale
Demo 33: App Builder – Track scaffolding costs with per-project metering
Demo 35: Compliance & Audit – Audit token usage for SOC 2 compliance