Trigger Cost Savings Agent Skill
> Analyze Trigger.dev tasks, schedules, and runs for cost optimization opportunities. Use when asked to reduce spend, optimize costs, audit usage, right-size machines, or review task efficiency. Combines static source analysis with live run analysis via the Trigger.dev MCP tools (list_runs, get_run_details, get_current_worker).
Install
one command, takes just this skill from the repositorynpx skills add https://github.com/triggerdotdev/trigger.dev --skill trigger-cost-savingsThe instruction itself
3 sections, as written by the authorTrigger.dev Cost Savings Analysis
The full, version-pinned cost-audit workflow ships inside your installed @trigger.dev/sdk. Read it before giving recommendations so they match the SDK version in this project:
- Skill:
node_modules/@trigger.dev/sdk/skills/trigger-cost-savings/SKILL.md— the static-analysis checklist, the MCP run-analysis steps (list_runs,get_run_details,get_current_worker), the report format, and the machine-preset cost table. - Docs: the canonical guidance is bundled at
node_modules/@trigger.dev/sdk/docs/how-to-reduce-your-spend.mdx, with supporting pages undernode_modules/@trigger.dev/sdk/docs/(machines.mdx,runs/max-duration.mdx,queue-concurrency.mdx,idempotency.mdx,triggering.mdx,errors-retrying.mdx).
If those paths don't exist, @trigger.dev/sdk isn't installed yet — install it first. In a non-hoisted layout, resolve the package with node -p "require.resolve('@trigger.dev/sdk/package.json')" and read skills/ + docs/ beside it.
Live run analysis needs the Trigger.dev MCP server (npx trigger.dev@latest install-mcp). Without it, do the static source analysis only — never fabricate run data.
Key principles
- Waits > 5 seconds are free — checkpointed, no compute charge.
- Start small, scale up — the default
small-1xis right for most tasks; right-size down tasks stuck onlarge-*with short durations. - I/O-bound tasks don't need big machines — API calls and DB queries wait on the network.
- Add
maxDuration— cap runaway compute. - Debounce high-frequency triggers — consolidate bursts into single runs.
- Idempotency keys prevent duplicate billed work.
AbortTaskRunErrorstops wasteful retries — don't pay to retry permanent failures.
References
Sibling skills: trigger-authoring-tasks (the task options these levers tune: machine, maxDuration, retry, queue, idempotency), trigger-realtime-and-frontend, trigger-authoring-chat-agent and trigger-chat-agent-advanced (AI agents).
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How to use it
Take triggerdotdev/trigger-cost-savings from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal
use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.
The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the
same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.
The instructions reference npx.
Without those the skill loads but fails at the first command.