Agent Budget Controller#

💰 Stop LLM cost overruns before they happen

Track, limit, and alert on LLM API costs per agent with daily/weekly/monthly budgets.

What It Does#

• Set budget limits — Global or per-agent, daily/weekly/monthly
• Track usage — Automatic cost calculation for 10+ LLM models
• Alert on thresholds — 70% warning, 90% critical, 100% blocked
• Generate reports — Usage summaries and cost breakdowns
• Zero dependencies — Pure Python stdlib, local-only

Quick Start#

bash

# Initialize
budget init

# Set limits
budget set --daily 3.00 --weekly 15.00 --monthly 50.00
budget set --agent ubik-pm --daily 1.00

# Log usage (manual - see Integration below)
budget log --agent ubik-pm --model "claude-sonnet-4-5" \
  --input-tokens 5000 --output-tokens 1500

# Check status
budget status
budget status --agent ubik-pm

# Check limits (exit code)
budget check  # exit 0=ok, 1=exceeded

Commands#

CommandPurposeinitInitialize budget trackingsetSet budget limitslogLog API usagestatusShow current usage vs limitscheckCheck if limits exceeded (exit code)reportGenerate detailed period reportagentsList agents with limits or activitypricingShow/update model pricinghistoryShow recent usage history

Supported Models#

Built-in pricing for:

• OpenAI: gpt-4o, gpt-4o-mini, o1, o1-mini
• Anthropic: claude-sonnet-4-5, claude-opus-4, claude-haiku-3.5
• Google: gemini-2.5-flash, gemini-2.5-pro, gemini-2.0-flash

Custom models:

bash

budget pricing --update --model my-model \
  --input-price 1.50 --output-price 5.00

Integration#

OpenClaw Heartbeat#

Add to HEARTBEAT.md:

markdown

## Budget Monitoring

Every 4 hours:
1. Check budget status: `budget status`
2. If any agent >90%, notify Director
3. If any exceeded, escalate immediately

Pre-call Hook (Future)#

bash

# In agent wrapper script
budget check --agent $AGENT_NAME || {
  echo "❌ Budget exceeded for $AGENT_NAME"
  exit 1
}

# Call LLM API...
# Log after call
budget log --agent $AGENT_NAME \
  --model "$MODEL" \
  --input-tokens $INPUT_TOKENS \
  --output-tokens $OUTPUT_TOKENS

Cron (Daily Report)#

bash

# Send daily report to Telegram
0 9 * * * budget report --period day | \
  openclaw msg --channel telegram --target @director

Alert Levels#

UsageLevelSymbolAction<70%OK✅Continue70-89%Warning⚠️Monitor90-99%Critical🔴Alert Director≥100%Exceeded🚫Block calls

Data Storage#

text

~/.openclaw/budget/
├── config.json       # Budget limits
├── pricing.json      # Model pricing (optional override)
└── usage.jsonl       # Append-only usage log

Privacy: All data stored locally. No network calls.

Examples#

See EXAMPLE.md for complete usage scenarios.

Testing#

bash

cd ~/ubik-collective/systems/ubik-pm/skills/agent-budget-controller
python3 tests/test_budget.py

Security#

• ✅ Zero external dependencies
• ✅ No network calls
• ✅ Local-only data storage
• ✅ Pure Python stdlib

Safe for ClawHub distribution.

License#

MIT-0 (public domain equivalent)