An r/hermesagent thread argued that bloated skills folders cost real tokens on every message. The author trimmed from 73 default skills to 26. Five approaches ranked for keeping skill folders honest.
Top Pick
Audit-first (count tokens per skill description), trim ruthlessly to under 30 default skills, then add specialized skills (like a Scavio search skill) only when a workflow actually needs them.
Full Ranking
#1Our Pick
Manual audit + trim to <30 + add specialized
Anyone serious about per-message token cost
Pros
- Direct control
- Clear before/after token math
Cons
- Manual once-a-quarter audit
#2
Skill-Marketplace approach (Hermes/OpenClaw plug-and-play)
Users who value plug-and-play over token efficiency
Pros
- Easy install
Cons
- Tendency to bloat back to 70+ skills
#3
Conditional skill loading (advanced)
Power users with custom agent runtime
Pros
- Token cost only when relevant
Cons
- Most agents don't expose this
#4
Agent profiles per task (separate skill sets per profile)
Users with distinct task types
Pros
- Smaller per-profile surface
Cons
- Profile-switch friction
#5
Default 70+ skill folder
First-week users exploring
Pros
- Easy
Cons
- The OP's exact target — token bloat per message
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Criteria | Scavio | Runner-up | 3rd Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per-message token overhead | Low (<30 skills) | Variable | High (70+) |
| Setup time | ~1 hour audit | Per-task | 0 min |
| Sustainability | Quarterly re-audit | Per-task | Bloats over time |
| Best for | Cost-aware power users | Multi-task users | Beginners |
Why Scavio Wins
- The OP's math is right: every skill description in the folder is in every message's input. With 70 skills × ~150 tokens each, you're spending 10K+ tokens per message just describing tools the agent might use. At a few hundred messages a week, that's a measurable bill.
- The trim recipe: kill skills you've literally never invoked in 2 weeks, kill duplicates (multiple 'fetch URL' variants), kill 'YouTube scraping' if you don't do video work, kill 'Twitter' if you don't do social. The OP did the work; copy the discipline.
- Scavio's role here is replacing 5-8 narrow skills with one skill that covers search, reddit, youtube, amazon, walmart, extract under one MCP server. The skill description cost is one entry, not eight.
- Honest tradeoff: trimmed skill folders are slower for novel tasks (the agent has to ask the user to add a skill). For predictable workflows that's a win; for exploratory work it's friction.
- Per-week token math: cutting 40 skills × 150 tokens = 6K input tokens saved per message × ~300 messages/week = 1.8M input tokens saved. At Claude Sonnet rates that's ~$5-10/week per user. Bigger than most realize.