ai-coding-tools
← Glossary

Tokens

The units of text that language models read and generate.

Tokens are the atomic units a language model sees — roughly 3-4 characters of English text, or a common word. "Hello world" is about 2-3 tokens. A typical TypeScript file is 500-2000 tokens. Pricing on most AI coding tools is metered in tokens, with input and output tokens priced differently.