Abe Burnett. The book · living numbers

THE SETUP COMPANION  ·  VERIFIED AUG 15, 2026  ·  NEXT CHECK NOV 2026

The living
numbers.

Books go stale; prices don't wait for print runs. This page is the perishable half of the book — the current tools, prices, endpoints, and limits for every setup path — checked quarterly and free whether or not you own the book. If a step in the Setup Kit and this page ever disagree, this page is right.

WHAT CHANGED SINCE THE KIT WAS PACKAGED: NOTHING MATERIAL — ALL PRICES BELOW MATCH THE AUG 15 VERIFICATION PASS
The ladderFour paths · verified Aug 15, 2026

What it costs right now

The full reasoning lives in the book's setup chapter; this is the standing record of what each rung costs today, so you never have to trust a screenshot from nine months ago.

FIG. N-1 — THE COST LADDER MONTHLY, USD AS OF AUG 2026
PATHSTACKMONTHLYTHE HONEST FOOTNOTE
Budget BuilderPATH A Hermes + OpenCode GoOPEN-SOURCE AGENT + CHEAP GOOD MODELS $10$5 FIRST MONTH Lives in the terminal. Genuinely capable, not a toy.
All-RounderPATH B One pro workspaceCURSOR-CLASS IDE + BUILT-IN MODELS ~$60 The friction-free middle. Where most readers land.
Power UserPATH C Pro tier + API top-upsMAX TIERS, ORCHESTRATION, MULTI-AGENT $100–200 Time-is-money territory. The book flags when this is waste.
ExplorerPATH D Free tiers onlyTRIALS, FREE MODELS, ZERO COMMITMENT $0TO START Fine for weeks. Upgrade deliberately when a wall appears.
LADDER STRUCTURE IS DURABLE · DOLLAR FIGURES ARE THE PERISHABLE PART — THAT'S WHY THIS PAGE EXISTS
Why Path A worksThe cheap-model economics

The models behind the $10 path

The reason a ten-dollar path is real in 2026: frontier-adjacent open models now price by the million tokens, and a typical conversation uses tens of thousands. The math, at list price:

FIG. N-2 — PAY-AS-YOU-GO MODEL PRICES PER MILLION TOKENS AS OF AUG 2026
MODELINPUT / MOUTPUT / MCONTEXT
DeepSeek V4 FlashTHE PATH A DEFAULT $0.14 $0.28 1M tokensA WHOLE PROJECT FITS
MiMo-V2.5SAME PRICE, DIFFERENT STRENGTHS $0.14 $0.28 200K tokens
A TYPICAL CONVERSATION RUNS 10–50K TOKENS — YOU ARE NOT GOING TO RUN OUT · FULL CONSUMPTION CURVE: BOOK, SETUP CHAPTER
Path A configThe exact strings · kept current

The exact configuration

Part 3 of the kit's walkthrough points here for the one detail that changes with the weather: where Hermes sends its requests when you're on OpenCode Go.

PATH A — HERMES × OPENCODE GO VERIFIED AUG 15, 2026
Provider type
OpenAI-compatible (custom)WHAT HERMES'S SETUP WIZARD CALLS IT
Base URL
https://opencode.ai/zen/go/v1APPEND /CHAT/COMPLETIONS IF YOUR CLIENT ASKS FOR A FULL ENDPOINT
Default model
deepseek-v4-flashTHE $0.14/M DEFAULT THE KIT RECOMMENDS
API key
From your OpenCode Go account settingsTREAT IT LIKE A PASSWORD — IT IS ONE
Pay-as-you-go alt.
platform.deepseek.com — same models, direct billingNO SUBSCRIPTION; YOU PAY PER MILLION TOKENS AT FIG. N-2 PRICES
OPENCODE GO — THE HONEST LIMITS STATED UP FRONT, NOT DISCOVERED LATER
Price
$5 first month, then $10/month
Usage included
$12 of usage per 5 hours · $30 per week · $60 per monthSOFT-CAPPED; OVERAGES ARE REFUSED, NOT BILLED — THE CONSUMPTION CURVE IN THE BOOK EXPLAINS WHY THIS IS PLENTY FOR PATH A
Hermes
$0 — free, open source, MITINSTALLER: STEP-BY-STEPS PART 1 IN THE KIT
ChangelogQuarterly passes · dated

The record of drift

V2026-08-15
First edition. Ladder, model prices, and Path A configuration verified against OpenCode and DeepSeek list prices. Matches the Setup Kit v1.0 as packaged — no corrections needed yet.
NOV 2026 (PLANNED)
Next scheduled pass: prices, limits, and whether the paths themselves moved.

Something here already wrong? That's a bug in the book's half of the bargain: abe@abeburnett.com gets it fixed same-week.