Axiom Docs

The control costs skill helps AI agents optimize Axiom usage and reduce costs:

Waste identification: Find unused columns, never-queried datasets, and high-volume low-value data
Query analysis: Analyze query patterns to identify optimization opportunities
Dashboard deployment: Deploy cost control dashboards with ingest trends, burn rate, and projections
Monitor creation: Set up monitors for contract limits, spike detection, and reduction glidepaths
Analysis workflow: Systematic approach to prioritize and analyze datasets by impact

Prerequisites

Create an Axiom account.
Create a dataset in Axiom where you send your data.
Create an API token in Axiom with permissions to ingest data to the dataset you have created.

Install control costs skill

Choose one of the following ways to install the control costs skill:

Install all Axiom skills at once for Claude Code, Cursor, and other Claude-compatible agents:

npx skills add axiomhq/skills

Install the control costs skill globally with Amp:

amp skill add --global axiomhq/skills/skills/controlling-costs --name controlling-costs --overwrite

Skills are available for users on Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans.

Clone the Axiom Skills repository:

git clone https://github.com/axiomhq/skills.git

Compress the skills/controlling-costs folder into a zip file.
Enable code execution in Settings > Capabilities.
Upload the zip file to your agent’s capabilities in Settings > Capabilities.

For more information, see the Claude documentation.

Clone the Axiom Skills repository and symlink the control costs skill to your Claude Code skills directory:

git clone https://github.com/axiomhq/skills.git ~/axiom-skills
ln -s ~/axiom-skills/skills/controlling-costs ~/.claude/skills/controlling-costs

For more information, see the Claude Code documentation.

Clone the Axiom Skills repository and symlink the control costs skill to Cursor’s Claude-compatible skills directory:

git clone https://github.com/axiomhq/skills.git ~/axiom-skills
ln -s ~/axiom-skills/skills/controlling-costs ~/.claude/skills/controlling-costs

For more information, see the Cursor documentation.

Clone the Axiom Skills repository and reference the control costs skill in your agent configuration:

git clone https://github.com/axiomhq/skills.git

The control costs skill is located at skills/controlling-costs/.

Configure Axiom credentials

All Axiom Skills share the same credential configuration. Create a configuration file at ~/.axiom.toml:

~/.axiom.toml

[deployments.dev]
url = "https://api.axiom.co"
token = "API_TOKEN"
org_id = "ORGANIZATION_ID"

Replace API_TOKEN with the Axiom API token you have generated. For added security, store the API token in an environment variable.Replace ORGANIZATION_ID with your organization ID. For more information, see Determine organization ID.For token creation and scoping guidance, see Token hygiene for AI agents.

Use control costs skill

The control costs skill activates automatically when you ask your AI agent to:

Reduce Axiom costs or find waste
Set up cost control dashboards and monitors
Analyze query coverage and unused data
Track ingest spend and burn rate

Example prompts:

“Help reduce Axiom costs”
“Find unused columns in the datasets”
“Set up cost control monitoring for the organization”
“Which datasets are being paid for but never queried?”

Cost control workflow

The control costs skill follows a phased approach:

Phase	Description
Discovery	Capture baseline ingest statistics and build analysis queue
Dashboard	Deploy cost control dashboard with trends and projections
Monitors	Create monitors for contract limits and spike detection
Optimization	Analyze datasets to find waste and recommend actions
Glidepath	Track reduction progress with weekly threshold updates

Platform overview

Send data

Console

AI engineering

Miscellaneous

Control costs skill

Prerequisites

Install control costs skill

Configure Axiom credentials

Use control costs skill

Cost control workflow

Platform overview

Send data

Console

AI engineering

Miscellaneous

​Prerequisites

​Install control costs skill

​Configure Axiom credentials

​Use control costs skill

​Cost control workflow

Prerequisites

Install control costs skill

Configure Axiom credentials

Use control costs skill

Cost control workflow