Set a budget limit for any AI coding agent — burn-rate, token, or dollar ceilings. When an agent loops, Terse escalates from alert to pause to kill, before the next API call — not after the invoice.
Autonomous coding agents retry failing tests, re-read the same files, and loop on tool calls — while every iteration is a paid API call. Left running overnight, one stuck agent can burn hundreds of dollars.
Cap spend velocity in dollars per hour. A loop shows up as a burn-rate spike within minutes — Terse trips the breaker long before the session total gets scary.
$/hourHard limit on total tokens per session. Terse tracks input, output, and cache tokens per turn, so the ceiling reflects what the API actually bills.
Per-sessionSet a plain dollar cap — "this session may not cost more than $5." Per-turn cost is computed with model-aware pricing, so the number is real, not a guess.
Model-awareAlert first, SIGSTOP pause second, SIGTERM kill last. Each stage is visible and reversible — the breaker never jumps straight to killing your agent.
Alert → Pause → KillEnforcement happens at the process level before the agent's next API request leaves your machine. Once the breaker trips, not one more token is billed.
Zero overshootEvery trip is logged: which ceiling, which agent, session cost at the moment of the trip. Paused agents resume with one click and continue where they stopped.
One-clickThree stages, in order, each one visible in the Terse dashboard and the Alert Center. Nothing is silent, nothing is destructive by default.
The breaker pairs with Terse's live agent monitor — per-turn cost, burn rate, context-window fill, duplicate tool calls, and redundant file reads across Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Windsurf, and more. And every prompt you do send is cheaper thanks to the built-in optimizer.
Everything about budget limits, pausing, and killing runaway agents.
The breaker guards every agent Terse monitors — and the optimizer shrinks every prompt you send.
30-day free trial. On-device. Arm the breaker in under a minute.