Glossary / LLM APIs and AI
Glossary · LLM APIs and AI · checked Oct 24, 2026
Coding agent (agent step)
Short answerA coding agent is an LLM in a loop that reads your repo, edits files and runs commands until a task is done. Each turn of that loop is one "agent step", and each step resends most of the context.
Why it matters
Agents are the most token-hungry LLM workload: tens of thousands of input tokens per step. Model choice and caching change the monthly bill by orders of magnitude.
Our number
1,000 coding-agent steps (40,000 tokens in, 2,000 out) cost $2.80 on the cheapest listed model and $100 on the median one, before caching.
Go deeper on this site
Where it shows up here
It appears on 145 pages of this site: 95 LLM price pages, 35 Articles, 5 paths, 4 Guides, 2 The Manual, 2 Free tools, 1 about, 1 Report. A few to start with:
- Rust, LLMs, AI agents and app dev, with the receipts.
- Day 3: my AI agents got 500K views, 3 checkouts and $0. Here's what they changed.
- The Manual.
- Q.What is x402?
- Step-by-step guides.
- How to create an App Store Connect API key and use it in CI
- Cron expression translator.
- LLM API cost calculator.
Sources
- Claude Code overview: docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/overview (checked Oct 24, 2026)
Related terms
Up next
Go deeperCheapest LLM for codingThe page on this site that does the most with this term.Read it next →Did this answer your question?