The latest articles on DEV Community by manu vijay (@manu_vijay_475f4119eb648b). https://dev.to/manu_vijay_475f4119eb648b https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4073943%2Fda498f98-97e8-48bf-a985-3f0e68bf1e4d.jpg https://dev.to/manu_vijay_475f4119eb648b en manu vijay Wed, 12 Aug 2026 02:50:44 +0000 https://dev.to/manu_vijay_475f4119eb648b/reducing-ai-agent-token-usage-with-deterministic-retrieval-a-real-world-case-study-27hc https://dev.to/manu_vijay_475f4119eb648b/reducing-ai-agent-token-usage-with-deterministic-retrieval-a-real-world-case-study-27hc <p><a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fu3fvm5wxkqqwc4xc8n66.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fu3fvm5wxkqqwc4xc8n66.png" alt=" " width="800" height="533"></a><br> 💡 AI Agent Token Optimization</p> <p>I recently explored a simple approach to reduce unnecessary token usage when AI agents work with large files.</p> <p>I created a PowerShell script for deterministic retrieval and added instructions to the agent skill to use this script whenever information is needed from the large file.</p> <p>The AI agent invokes the PowerShell script, retrieves only the relevant information, and then focuses on reasoning instead of processing the entire file.</p> <p>In my specific scenario, this reduced token usage by approximately 80–95%.</p> <p>Let tools do the searching. Let AI do the reasoning.</p> <h1> ai #githubcopilot #powershell #dotnet </h1> ai githubcopilot agents agentskills