The latest articles on DEV Community by mightbesaad (@mightbesaad). https://dev.to/mightbesaad https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3968849%2F07e5fdcb-bf63-4117-a716-4a202f415a99.jpg https://dev.to/mightbesaad en mightbesaad Fri, 05 Jun 2026 21:21:35 +0000 https://dev.to/mightbesaad/howdy-i-built-budget-controls-for-ai-agents-does-this-solve-a-problem-you-actually-have-16dj https://dev.to/mightbesaad/howdy-i-built-budget-controls-for-ai-agents-does-this-solve-a-problem-you-actually-have-16dj <p>been building AI agent infrastructure for the past few months. The two things that kept biting me —<br> and kept coming up when I talked to other devs building agents — were runaway costs and agents doing<br> irreversible things without asking first.</p> <p>So I built gvnr: an open-source MCP server that gives agents per-agent spend caps (hard-stop before a<br> call if the budget's gone) and a human approval gate (agent asks, you get a mobile link, you approve or<br> deny, agent waits). Both work as plain REST calls or MCP tools — no platform to adopt, no SDK.</p> <p>It's live. You can get an API key in one curl command and try the approval gate for free (it doesn't burn<br> the trial ops). Source is at <a href="https://github.com/mightbesaad/gvnr" rel="noopener noreferrer">github.com/mightbesaad/gvnr</a>.</p> <p>Here's what I genuinely want to know from devs building in this space:</p> <ul> <li>Does the spend-cap shape match how you think about cost control, or do you manage that somewhere else entirely?</li> <li>Is the approval gate useful if it's email-only and single-approver, or does that make it a toy?</li> <li>What flag would stop you from wiring this into an agent you actually run?</li> </ul> <p>Not fishing for encouragement — if this is solving the wrong problem, or solving it the wrong way, I'd<br> rather know now.</p> ai agents mcp