Trigger.dev Cost Savings Analysis

The full, version-pinned cost-audit workflow ships inside your installed @trigger.dev/sdk. Read it before giving recommendations so they match the SDK version in this project:

• Skill: node_modules/@trigger.dev/sdk/skills/trigger-cost-savings/SKILL.md — the static-analysis checklist, the MCP run-analysis steps (list_runs, get_run_details, get_current_worker), the report format, and the machine-preset cost table.
• Docs: the canonical guidance is bundled at node_modules/@trigger.dev/sdk/docs/how-to-reduce-your-spend.mdx, with supporting pages under node_modules/@trigger.dev/sdk/docs/ (machines.mdx, runs/max-duration.mdx, queue-concurrency.mdx, idempotency.mdx, triggering.mdx, errors-retrying.mdx).

If those paths don't exist, @trigger.dev/sdk isn't installed yet — install it first. In a non-hoisted layout, resolve the package with node -p "require.resolve('@trigger.dev/sdk/package.json')" and read skills/ + docs/ beside it.

Live run analysis needs the Trigger.dev MCP server (npx trigger.dev@latest install-mcp). Without it, do the static source analysis only — never fabricate run data.

Key principles

• Waits > 5 seconds are free — checkpointed, no compute charge.
• Start small, scale up — the default small-1x is right for most tasks; right-size down tasks stuck on large-* with short durations.
• I/O-bound tasks don't need big machines — API calls and DB queries wait on the network.
• Add maxDuration — cap runaway compute.
• Debounce high-frequency triggers — consolidate bursts into single runs.
• Idempotency keys prevent duplicate billed work.
• AbortTaskRunError stops wasteful retries — don't pay to retry permanent failures.

References

Sibling skills: trigger-authoring-tasks (the task options these levers tune: machine, maxDuration, retry, queue, idempotency), trigger-realtime-and-frontend, trigger-authoring-chat-agent and trigger-chat-agent-advanced (AI agents).