loop-budget

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

1. Read loop-budget.md for daily caps and kill-switch flags.
2. Read recent entries in loop-run-log.md (last 24h).
3. Sum tokens_estimate for the active pattern today.
4. If spend ≥ 80% of the pattern's daily cap → report-only mode (no sub-agents, no auto-fix).
5. 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.
6. 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.