43FINOPS

Budgets, Quotas & Model Routing

Treat dollars, tokens and calls as governed resources just like data and permissions.

Priority: P1
Phase: Phase 2
Primary owner: FinOps / AI Platform
Status: Blueprint

Objective

Budget enforcement should control not only dollars but also rate, concurrency and model selection. Policy-aware routing can reduce cost while preserving required quality, security and residency.

What to build

Budgets per agent/team/application with soft and hard thresholds.
Token/request/tool-call quotas and concurrency limits.
Model routing policies by task class, sensitivity, latency and budget.
Fallback provider chains constrained by approved-provider policy.
Emergency throttle for runaway agents.

Implementation decisions

Evaluate budgets before expensive model/tool calls when possible.
Support exception approval for one-time overruns.
Use historical outcomes to recommend cheaper routes, but require admin acceptance for policy changes.
Expose budget context in developer APIs so agents can degrade gracefully.

Definition of done

Budget limit cannot be bypassed by switching provider through a protected gateway.
Routing never sends restricted data to an unapproved model.
Admins can see projected impact before changing routing rules.

Success metrics

Budget adherence
Routing savings
Fallback frequency
Runaway-loop terminations

FINOPS CONTROL

Treat dollars, tokens and calls as governed resources just like data and permissions.