Costcontrol

Three Claude Code subagents request reservations from one parent-owned budget ledger, which admits two calls and blocks the third before the shared ceiling is exceeded

Claude Code stayed under every child budget and still overspent

Three Claude Code subagents each stayed inside their local limit. Together they broke the run budget because nobody reserved spend at the parent boundary.

A Claude Code cost envelope that prices tool calls before execution, reserves budget at dispatch, records actual spend, and stops over-budget paths

Make Claude Code price the tool path before it starts

Token limits miss the expensive part of many Claude Code runs. A cost envelope prices search, MCP calls, evals, and retries before the agent can spend them.

Claude Code agent cost loop diagram showing vague tasks, broad tools, repeated exploration, and no stop rule

Claude Code Agent Cost Loops Start as Workflow Bugs

Claude Code cost problems usually start before the model call: vague tasks, wide-open tools, repeated repo exploration, and no stop rule. Treat spend as a workflow bug, not just a pricing problem.