AIToday
Large Language ModelsAI Coding AssistantsOpen-Source AISimon Willison's WeblogPublished: Oct 19, 2026, 10:01 JST

llm-echo 0.5 counts tool-call and reasoning tokens

3 Key Points

  1. What happened

    Simon Willison shipped llm-echo 0.5, a debug plugin whose "echo" model involves no LLM at all and just repeats back prompts; it now simulates token usage including tool calls, system prompts and reasoning tokens.

  2. Why it matters

    Developers building against the LLM tool can test token accounting without billing real model calls, keeping prompt and reasoning overhead visible in the counts.

Not sure about something? Ask the AI

Questions and answers are published on this page.

Summaries like this, in your inbox every morning.

Context & Analysis

llm-echo exists as a debugging aid rather than a real model: it echoes prompts back, so developers can inspect what the LLM tool is actually sending without paying for or waiting on a model call. The 0.5 release narrows a gap in that simulation. Version 0.5 now factors tool calls, system prompts and reasoning tokens into the simulated token counts, so the numbers it reports better reflect the inputs a real model would be charged for. Willison notes he revisited the plugin while testing PRs for an upcoming LLM release, which suggests the token-accounting change was driven by his own testing needs around that release.

FAQ
Does llm-echo call an actual language model?
No. It provides a "model" that doesn't involve an LLM at all and simply repeats back the prompts fed to it.
How do you see the simulated token usage?
Add the --usage flag; the example run with -o thinking 1 --usage reported 2 input and 24 output tokens.
Simon Willison's WeblogRead Original Article

AI news that matters for your work, delivered every morning.

Pick your industry and the AI tools you use, and get news related to your work every day.

Free · 30 seconds with Google · unsubscribe anytimeWhat is AIToday? →

Ask AI

Ask AI anything about this article. The AI reads this article, earlier AIToday articles, and Wikipedia, and cites its sources. Q&As are published on this page for other readers too.

Questions and answers are published on this page.

Related Articles

Next articleApple's $299 HomeView smart display gets no Japan launch date