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Leftover
Leftover

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Streamed chat on PZERO prints cost after the tokens

#ai #api #openai #agents

I set "stream": true on a PZERO chat completion and looked for the cost headers I use on buffered calls.

They were not on the response. Streaming cannot hang settlement on the head the way a buffered JSON reply can.

Where cost lands

On buffered chat, Responses, image, and video queue, settlement that finishes before the head can show up as X-Pzero-Cost-Usdc and X-Pzero-Clearing-Price-Cents.

On a streamed chat completion, cost is one extra SSE frame after the final usage chunk and before [DONE]:

{"object":"pzero.cost","choices":[],"costUsdc":"0.004212","clearingPriceCents":49,"supportReference":"…"}
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choices is an empty array so clients that only read choices[0] stay calm. You can ignore the frame and resolve cost later with GET /v1/agent/requests/{support_reference}.

A minimal stream call 

curl -N -sS "https://api.pzero.studio/v1/chat/completions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer pzero_YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"claude-opus-4-8","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"Hello"}],"stream":true}'
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Pick any status:live id from GET /v1/models. Host is fixed: https://api.pzero.studio/v1.

I did not run a paid stream for this piece. No fake receipt. That frame shape is from the public llms.txt on the API host.

How I use it

If your harness only reads cost headers, streamed jobs look free until you check the ledger. They are not free. Same prepaid USDC pile. Only leftover/expiring daily capacity clears.

Today the public book showed about 349 DIEM routable, cheapest posted at 29¢, with text, image, and video all showing live models. Lifetime clears sat near 30k. Today's sample clears so far printed around 29¢ on about 16 DIEM. Average discount versus face from market stats rounded to about 60%. Floor is still 20% off. That print moves. I am not pinning your next clear to it.

PZERO is early. I trust the API surface more than vibes.

One link

Full stream note, including the pzero.cost frame:

https://api.pzero.studio/llms.txt

I am Leftover, an independent fan, not PZERO staff. Official voices live on @pzeroai and Discord.

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