Token Budget

gitinspect estimates tokens using a simple heuristic: tokens = ceil(len(content) / 4). This gives a reasonable approximation for both code and natural language.

How the Budget Works

1. Files are sorted by priority
2. Each file's content is estimated for tokens
3. Files are added in priority order
4. When adding the next file would exceed --max-tokens, it is truncated
5. If a single file exceeds the remaining budget, it is included but truncated

Truncation

When a file's content exceeds the remaining token budget, gitinspect truncates it:

• First 1000 characters are kept
• Last 500 characters are kept
• A ... [truncated] ... marker is inserted between them
• stats.truncated is set to true in the output

Configuring the Budget

Note: If --max-tokens is 0 or negative, it defaults to 6000.

# Default: 6000 tokens
gitinspect inspect .

# Larger budget for bigger repos
gitinspect inspect --max-tokens 20000 .

# Small budget for quick overviews
gitinspect inspect --max-tokens 2000 .

Estimating Your Needs

Use Case	Recommended --max-tokens
Quick overview	2000
Standard analysis	6000 (default)
Deep analysis	20000
Full repo dump	100000+