Usage Guide & Prompts

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Interaction Principles

When asking an AI assistant to use Alephant MCP:

  1. Name the scope: current virtual key, whole workspace, a department UUID, an agent UUID, or a member UUID.
  2. Name the time window: 24h, 7d, 30d, or billing_cycle for shared usage tools; some Manager analytics also support 3m, 6m, and 12m.
  3. Require tool use for live data: say “Use the enabled Alephant MCP tools; do not guess.”
  4. Confirm writes explicitly: creating keys, updating budgets, revoking keys, and setting budget policies are Manager-mode write operations.

Natural Language Examples

IntentExample
Usage summary”Use Alephant MCP to show usage summary for the current billing cycle.”
Daily trend”Use Alephant MCP to show daily cost trend for the last 7 days.”
Model cost”Use Alephant MCP to break down spend by model for the last 30 days.”
VK scope”Use Alephant MCP to tell me what scope my virtual key is bound to.”
VK budget”Use Alephant MCP to show how much budget is left this billing cycle.”
Workspace dashboard”Use Alephant MCP to build an executive dashboard for the workspace.”
Cost anomaly”Use Alephant MCP to diagnose cost anomalies for the last 30 days.”
Idle resources”Use Alephant MCP to find idle virtual keys and agents.”
Key management”Use Alephant MCP to list all virtual keys and budgets.”
Audit”Run Alephant’s cost audit report for this week.”

Command Templates

The MCP protocol does not register slash commands in the chat box. These templates are suggested text prefixes to send to the assistant.

Shared tools

TemplateTypical tools
/alephant-usage Show usage summary for this billing cycleget_usage_summary with period=billing_cycle
/alephant-usage Total consumption and daily trend for the last 7 daysget_usage_summary, get_daily_costs
/alephant-usage Cost by model for the last 30 daysget_cost_by_model
/alephant-models List currently available modelslist_available_models
/alephant-health Check the Alephant connectioncheck_alephant_connection

VK mode

TemplateTool
/alephant-vk What is the scope bound to my current keyget_my_scope
/alephant-vk How much budget is left for this billing cycleget_my_budget
/alephant-vk Show recent requests for this keyget_my_recent_requests

Manager mode

TemplateTypical tools
/alephant-mgr Workspace overviewget_workspace_overview
/alephant-mgr Workspace budget statusget_workspace_budget_status
/alephant-mgr Real-time 24h dashboardget_live_24h
/alephant-mgr Usage time series for cost over 30 daysget_usage_timeseries
/alephant-mgr Seven-day sparkline trendsget_sparklines
/alephant-mgr List all virtual keys and budgetslist_virtual_keys
/alephant-mgr Create a virtual key after I confirm label, master key, budget, and RPMcreate_virtual_key
/alephant-mgr Update key [uuid] budget to [cents] and action [alert_only or block]update_key_budget
/alephant-mgr Revoke key [uuid] after I confirmrevoke_virtual_key
/alephant-mgr List departmentslist_departments
/alephant-mgr Department [uuid] analytics for the last 30 daysget_department_analytics
/alephant-mgr List agentslist_agents
/alephant-mgr Agent [uuid] analytics for the last 7 daysget_agent_analytics
/alephant-mgr List memberslist_members
/alephant-mgr Member [uuid] analytics for the last 30 daysget_member_analytics
/alephant-mgr Subscription and billing cycle infoget_subscription_info
/alephant-mgr Set workspace budget policy to [amount] cents with action [alert_only or block]set_budget_policy
/alephant-mgr Diagnose cost anomalies for the last 30 daysdiagnose_cost_anomaly
/alephant-mgr Build executive dashboardget_executive_dashboard
/alephant-mgr Drill down workspace spend by departmentdrill_down_spend
/alephant-mgr Find idle keys and agentsfind_idle_resources
/alephant-mgr Compare [department, agent, or member] [uuid] current vs previous 30 dayscompare_entity_periods

Built-In Prompts

PromptModeArgumentsDescription
cost_audit_reportVK + Manager`period=weeklymonthly
cost_optimizationManager`focus=modelsdepartments
workspace_health_checkManager`urgency=quickthorough`
cost_deep_diveManager`target=workspacedepartment

Example request:

Use Alephant MCP prompt cost_audit_report with period=weekly. Do not assume data that tools did not return.

Notes

  • get_usage_summary returns total_tokens.input as prompt/input tokens and total_tokens.output as completion/output tokens.
  • get_cost_by_model is filtered to the current VK’s bound agent/member scope when applicable; unbound keys use workspace scope.
  • get_my_recent_requests returns live rows with tokens_in, tokens_out, status, latency_ms, and created_at. degraded=true means the backend, Collector, or requested scope could not provide live rows.
  • These are response behavior clarifications only; the MCP tool schema is unchanged.
  • get_request_logs is not available in this MCP build.
  • Manager composite tools may call multiple Alephant API endpoints and return partial metadata when one step fails.
  • For persistent dashboards or charts, use the Alephant Cockpit UI after the MCP tools identify the relevant scope and time window.