Knowledgebase

Pikkumies runs on the AI credits your Pulsed Media services earn. Every question you ask it costs some credits; how many depends on how much work the question takes.

See what you have left

• When you start it. In a terminal, pikkumies prints a credits line before the session opens, for example 💳 4.7M credits ▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱ 94% left · ≥1.1M tokens · today 35k.
• In tmux. pikkumies tmux keeps the same line in the tmux status bar and refreshes it every minute.
• Ask it. "How many AI credits do I have left?" It answers with its own credits tool and never reads your key.
• doctor. pikkumies doctor shows the credits left on your key.

See where they went

• "Where did my credits go this week?" It shows what you spent per day and per model: requests, tokens and credits. Ask for any period from one day to 400 days.
• "Which models can I use?" It lists the models your AI endpoint offers, with the rates and descriptions the endpoint gives.
• When your balance runs low (under 10% of your latest grant, or under about 200k tokens), Pikkumies mentions it, at most once per conversation. It uses the reading the credits line already made, so checking makes no extra request.

Reading the credits line

• The first number is your balance, rounded down.
• The bar and the percentage compare the balance with your latest grant of credits. A ~ before the percentage means that comparison is approximate.
• ≥ … tokens is a floor: at least that many tokens of model work are left at the model's highest rate. In practice you usually get more.
• today is what was spent so far today (UTC).

What uses credits, and what does not

• Uses credits: each question and every step the agent takes to answer it. A question that makes it run several checks and read documentation costs more than a quick answer.
• Does not: the daily update of Pikkumies, pikkumies doctor, and the credits line itself, which reads your balance without asking the model anything.
• Scheduled jobs you set up with Pikkumies run the agent too, so they use credits when they run.

How many credits each plan earns, and what else they pay for: What can I do with AI credits on my seedbox? and Pulsed Media AI Credits.