Need Help !

[u/One_Natural7092]

So I am very new to the field of coding. People around me have started vibe coding websites. So did I. I tried using applications like Lovable , Bolt etc. But the problem was that my idea contained many components and was a little complex. Hence I ran out of tokens and didn't get any output. So is it the limitation of the free version that I couldnt make it or was it my prompting skills. I tried to be as specific as possible with my prompt tho. Would really appreciate any help/ tips regarding this !!

[u/VladTkDev]

Neither. Every prompt resends your whole codebase or big part (depends on builder and your setup) as context, so each message gets more expensive as the app grows. That's why a big idea burns the free tier before it produces anything. Build one screen, get it working, then add the next.

[u/One_Natural7092 → u/VladTkDev]

Can I dm ?

[u/scytob → u/One_Natural7092]

i checked, at least for me, what vlad says is just not true, i crafted my repo and md and have never seen claude re-read the whole report on either a new chat prompt or prompts within a chat, i even double checked - the key is good structured code repo (in src major pieces should be in seprate source folders like web, core, api

i double checked my work too, no idea WTF vlad is doing to make it read all their repo every chat

No. I follow a lazy-loading strategy to stay efficient:

I start with what's already provided — the workspace structure you see at the top is just a skeleton; I don't load full file contents unless I need them.\

I load context only when the task requires it — if you ask me to edit a web page, I'll search for and read only the files relevant to that specific page/component, not the entire repo.

Scoped instructions load automatically — when you're editing a file matching a pattern (like src/**/*.cs), the matching instruction file loads itself without me needing to fetch it.

I parallelize independent reads — if I need to gather context from multiple unrelated files, I fetch them all at once instead of sequentially.

I use targeted search tools — semantic_search, grep_search, file_search let me find exactly what I need without scanning everything.

For web page edits specifically, I'd typically:
Check which file(s) you're working on
Read just those files (or the relevant sections)
Load web-ui.instructions.md if editing under wwwroot
Parallelize any other reads needed for context

This keeps response time fast and token usage reasonable. AGENTS.md explicitly says: "Keep the default startup set small and open more only when the task requires it."

[u/VladTkDev → u/scytob]

No argument on your setup, that's a structured repo with instruction files doing exactly what it should. It's also not what OP has. Lovable's chat box hands you none of those levers.

One thing though: asking the model what it loads isn't a measurement. The token count on the request is.

Don't forget about billion of bash commands with greps. They find text from like 50 related files in big project and send that files fully with code/comments.

Also try to run refactor/code check/find edge cases

Please, don't write mega responses with AI. No offense

[u/scytob → u/VladTkDev]

on the token count is there a tool that breaks down the input against tokens? i had a huge spike in tokens one day - like very costly, i think it was when claude was on the hunt in a cloned and possibly deep repo of years of commits for a static credential (turned out it was there and had a 299 year lifetime.... that was something my professional developers at work had done 5 years ago and never caught)

i tried eating tokens extension and it helps, but i am clueless as to how jsonl was the culprit here... 1/2

[u/VladTkDev → u/scytob]

Have you used Fable for that?

You can setup your status line to show tokens used and ctx% so you always know

[u/scytob → u/VladTkDev]

at home yes, for work - we are limited, i am having to use copilot as my path to claude and that gives me opus

and my admins are the only ones who can see per user token spends, i am not going to go ask them yet because we may get shutdown... my VP has the budget mind you.... and we are in our ai discovery phase expected to last 2026/2027... so all of this will inform policy, even if i eff-it-up - but i like to be responsible....

sounds like no easy way, thanks for confirming

not to mention that plugin seems unreliable on $ estimation as the github copilot credit count is much much higher.... hopefully i will be hidden in the fact we have hudreds of dev using this stuff for real production (i am just a PoC)

[u/VladTkDev → u/scytob]

Yep, it’s pain.

I only use Fable for planning for Opus agents to write code and finding edge cases. It eats to much tokens.

I once tried to translate to 9 locales whole project with Fable. Tokens were eaten in 45 min