Agent Onboarding Spend Brief
Every new agent gets a budget before it gets a key. Fill this brief in, attach it to the deploy ticket, and ship with guardrails.
The brief
Agent name & purpose: [NAME] — [WHAT IT DOES].
Budget: [DAILY CEILING] / [MONTHLY CEILING].
Approved vendors: [LIST].
Banned categories: [LIST].
Approval threshold: [AMOUNT].
Owner & approver: [NAME].
Hours: [e.g. 9–18 local; overnight = flagged].
Turning it into rules
Each line maps to a rule: ceiling → daily cap, vendors → allowlist, threshold → approval flag, hours → time-of-day.
One-line check
Ship gate: agent has (1) a cap, (2) an allowlist, (3) an owner. No exceptions.The three-line minimum for any spend-capable agent.
FAQ
What's the minimum brief?
Three fields: budget, approved vendors, owner. Everything else is refinement.
Who fills it in?
The engineer shipping the agent, reviewed by the budget owner.
What if the agent needs a new vendor mid-flight?
The approval threshold catches it: new merchants are FLAGGED for review, not silently billed.
Related
Stop the next $12,400 night.
One API call (or MCP tool) in front of every agent transaction — APPROVED, BLOCKED, or FLAGGED, deterministic, ~5 ms, fully logged.
See plans — from $99/mo Try a live check