My agent burned $147 in ~40 minutes… so I wrote a small circuit breaker

Barrboss — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 02:30:24 +0000

Last week one of my small AI scripts went off the rails.

It got stuck retrying a step while streaming responses and kept hitting the API again and again.

By the time I noticed the usage jumped about $147 in less than an hour.

So I wrote a small Python “circuit breaker” that stops requests if a rolling token or cost limit is exceeded. It can even cut a streaming response mid-generation.

Nothing fancy. Just a single Python file that runs locally.

If this might help someone, I shared it here:

https://gist.github.com/alexdirochian-star/730122004e289bbc6f6b42d4f431656f

How are you guys preventing runaway token usage in agents?

My agent burned $147 in ~40 minutes… so I wrote a small circuit breaker

Barrboss — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 02:21:21 +0000

I was testing a small agent script last week and it ended up getting stuck retrying a step while streaming responses.

It kept calling the API again and again and I didn’t notice for a while.

By the time I checked the usage it had jumped about $147 in under an hour.

After that I wrote a small Python “circuit breaker” that stops requests if a rolling token or cost limit is exceeded. It can also interrupt streaming responses mid-generation.
It’s just a single Python file that runs locally. No cloud and no keys leaving your machine.

If this might help someone, I shared it here:

https://gist.github.com/alexdirochian-star/730122004e289bbc6f6b42d4f431656f

Curious how others are protecting their agents from runaway API usage?

DEV Community: Barrboss

My agent burned $147 in ~40 minutes… so I wrote a small circuit breaker

My agent burned $147 in ~40 minutes… so I wrote a small circuit breaker