Running a crew in production and realizing there’s no native way to
cap what a crew spends before it runs.
The problem isn’t visibility — I can see costs after the fact. The
problem is enforcement. If a task loops or an agent retries
aggressively, the money is already gone by the time you notice.
What I’ve been testing: adding a check_spend tool to agents that
incur costs. Before any paid API call, the agent calls the tool with
the estimated amount. The tool either approves or blocks based on a
policy. The key is it’s structural — the check happens before the
call, not after.
Has anyone solved this differently in their crews? Curious what
patterns people are using for hard limits vs just monitoring.