diff --git a/.jules/bolt.md b/.jules/bolt.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..40193998b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.jules/bolt.md
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+## 2024-05-24 - Single Pass String Iteration for Token Estimation
+**Learning:** `utf8.RuneCountInString(msg)` performs a full iteration over the string. If the string needs to be iterated over again (e.g., `for _, r := range msg`) to check specific rune properties, this results in two full passes over the string.
+**Action:** Always count the total number of runes manually within the existing `for range` loop when a subsequent full iteration of the string is already required. This essentially halves the execution time.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/pkg/routing/features.go b/pkg/routing/features.go
index 74fb1706a..5393617d6 100644
--- a/pkg/routing/features.go
+++ b/pkg/routing/features.go
@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@ package routing
 
 import (
 	"strings"
-	"unicode/utf8"
 
 	"jane/pkg/providers"
 )
@@ -56,16 +55,20 @@ func ExtractFeatures(msg string, history []providers.Message) Features {
 // for English). Splitting the count this way avoids the 3x underestimation that a
 // flat rune_count/3 would produce for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text.
 func estimateTokens(msg string) int {
-	total := utf8.RuneCountInString(msg)
-	if total == 0 {
-		return 0
-	}
+	// Optimization: Count total runes during the single iteration below
+	// rather than calling utf8.RuneCountInString first. This halves
+	// the execution time by doing one string pass instead of two.
+	total := 0
 	cjk := 0
 	for _, r := range msg {
+		total++
 		if r >= 0x2E80 && r <= 0x9FFF || r >= 0xF900 && r <= 0xFAFF || r >= 0xAC00 && r <= 0xD7AF {
 			cjk++
 		}
 	}
+	if total == 0 {
+		return 0
+	}
 	return cjk + (total-cjk)/4
 }