Copilot Tokens

Token usage tracker for VS Code Copilot Chat (Windows / macOS / Linux).

Parses the built-in Copilot Chat debug logs (main.jsonl) and aggregates input / output tokens, model, and latency per LLM request and per session — in a native, theme-aware webview panel.

• No VS Code internal APIs — reads the official debug log files only
• Read-only & private — never phones home, never uploads anything
• English / Chinese UI (auto-detected) + 5 panel color themes
• Works with BYOK users (no usage shown on the GitHub billing page)

Why this exists

• Since VS Code 1.13x, empty-window chat sessions write their debug logs to globalStorage/github.copilot-chat/debug-logs/, while several third-party tracker extensions only scan the older workspaceStorage path — so they show "no sessions found"
• BYOK (bring-your-own-key) users don't see usage on the GitHub billing page; local log analysis is the only option
• This extension parses llm_request events directly from the logs

Prerequisites

Enable debug log file writing in VS Code settings (settings.json or the Settings UI):

"github.copilot.chat.agentDebugLog.fileLogging.enabled": true

With this setting on, full request logs for every session are written to local disk. Turn it off if you don't want logs persisted (this extension will then have no data to read).

Features

• Summary cards — total sessions, requests, input / output tokens, average latency over the selected day window
• Per-session table — time, request count, tokens, model, session title (from your first user message)
• Deleted sessions — sessions you removed from the VS Code chat list are still counted (the tokens were consumed) but grouped at the bottom with a "Deleted" badge
• Expandable per-request detail — duration, TTFT, input / output tokens, model for every single LLM request
• Activity bar icon — click the icon on the left to open the dashboard in the sidebar; Copilot Tokens: Show Usage still opens the full-width tab panel
• Status bar — total tokens for the selected window on the right side of the status bar; click to open the panel
• Auto-refresh — re-scans the logs every 60 s by default (copilotTokens.autoRefresh, set 0 to disable)
• Day window — 7 / 30 / 90 days or all sessions
• JSON export — save the current report as a UTF-8 JSON file
• Theming — follows your light/dark theme; 5 accent color themes (default / green / purple / orange / red), persisted in settings
• i18n — English / 简体中文, auto-detected from the VS Code display language

Commands

The dashboard is also available as a sidebar view: click the Copilot Tokens icon on the activity bar (left edge). The status bar item on the right shows the total token count and opens the panel on click.

Settings

Data sources

The extension auto-discovers logs in both layouts (new and legacy):

Known limitations

• Cached tokens are not recorded: VS Code currently does not write cache read/write tokens to the log (see microsoft/vscode#329657). The parser reserves a cachedTokens field; it will light up automatically once the format supports it
• Input tokens are the full context of each request (system prompt, history, tool results), so multi-turn sessions show a large "input" total — this is normal context accumulation, not double counting
• The log format is an internal VS Code implementation with no stability guarantee. If data goes missing after a VS Code upgrade, please open an issue with one llm_request event from your main.jsonl (redacted)

Privacy

• The extension is read-only over local log files. It never phones home or uploads anything
• Session titles come from your first user message — review exported JSON for sensitive content before sharing
• Never commit raw main.jsonl logs to any repository

Develop from source

Want the very latest version before it hits the Marketplace?

1. Clone yuyuanjingxuan/copilot-tokens
2. Open the extension/ folder in VS Code and run npm install
3. Press F5 (Run Extension) — a second VS Code window opens with the dev build
4. In that window, run Copilot Tokens: Show Usage

License

MIT

Author

yuyuanjingxuan — yuyuanjingxuan/copilot-tokens