| name | loop-budget |
| description | Check token budget and run-log spend before and after a loop run. Enforces early exit when over budget or when there is no actionable work. |
Loop Budget Guard
Run at the start and end of every loop iteration.
Start of run
- Read
loop-budget.md for daily caps and kill-switch flags.
- Read recent entries in
loop-run-log.md (last 24h).
- Sum
tokens_estimate for the active pattern today.
- If spend ≥ 80% of the pattern's daily cap → report-only mode (no sub-agents, no auto-fix).
- If spend ≥ 90% and High Priority items remain in
STATE.md, yield to the budget-negotiator skill (if installed). Otherwise, if spend ≥ 100% or loop-pause-all is set → exit immediately with a one-line note in STATE.md.
- If watchlist/state has no actionable items → exit in <5k tokens (do not spawn sub-agents).
End of run
Append one JSON object to loop-run-log.md:
{
"run_id": "<ISO8601>",
"pattern": "<pattern-id>",
"duration_s": <number>,
"items_found": <number>,
"actions_taken": <number>,
"escalations": <number>,
"tokens_estimate": <number>,
"outcome": "no-op | report-only | fix-proposed | escalated"
}
Rules
- Never exceed
max sub-agent spawns/run from loop-budget.md.
- High-cadence patterns (CI Sweeper, PR Babysitter) must early-exit when nothing is actionable.
- On self-throttle, append a line to
loop-budget.md under Alerts This Period.
