BUDGETS
Predictable limits for agentic systems
Budgets define how much work an agentic system is allowed to perform. They exist to make cost and execution predictable in environments where workloads runs continuously.
In a governed system, budgets are not advisory. They are enforced.
Agent-based workflows consume resources incrementally and often asynchronously. Without explicit limits, usage accumulates quietly until it becomes an operational problem.
Budgets address this by setting boundaries in advance. They determine whether execution is permitted to begin and whether it may continue as work progresses.
This shifts cost from something observed after the fact to something controlled by design.
How budgets are designed
Budgets are treated as first-class controls within the governance plane.
They are defined centrally and referenced at runtime, rather than embedded inside workflows or agents. This ensures that limits remain consistent even as workflows change, and that updates take effect without redeploying logic.
Budgets are evaluated before execution begins and enforced deterministically as work proceeds.
Ownership and change management
Budgets are managed by non-engineer operational owners.
Changes are intentional, versioned, and applied by reference across the system. Because workflows do not carry local budget logic, adjusting a budget does not introduce inconsistency or drift.
This allows teams to change limits safely without reengineering the systems they govern.
Budget usage and enforcement decisions are visible through governance telemetry and execution records.
This provides enough context to understand what occurred and why, without requiring reconstruction from logs or inference from side effects.
Budgets are observable, but observation does not alter enforcement.
Designed to scale
Because budgets are centralized, reference-based, and recorded immutably, they scale cleanly across workflows, teams, and environments.
They are suitable for systems where interruption is expected, cost boundaries matter, and execution must remain stable even when limits are reached.