Budget Set Skill for Claude

Budget Set

Help the user define a spend budget and turn it into a live cost guardrail on the

Agent Monitor dashboard.

Input

The user provides: $ARGUMENTS

This is the budget to set — e.g. "$50/month", "$10/week", or "200000 tokens".

If a period is omitted, treat it as a monthly budget and say so. If no number is

given, read current spend first and propose a target.

Data Sources

| Endpoint | Returns |

|----------|---------|

| GET /api/pricing/cost | { total_cost, breakdown: [{ model, input_tokens, output_tokens, cache_read_tokens, cache_write_tokens, cost, matched_rule }] } — current spend, used to size the budget and compute the blended $/token rate |

| GET /api/alerts/rules | { rules: [{ id, name, rule_type, config, enabled, cooldown_seconds }] } — existing rules, so you don't create a duplicate guardrail |

| POST /api/alerts/rules | Create a rule. Body: { name, rule_type, config, enabled?, cooldown_seconds? }. Returns { rule } |

How a budget becomes a rule

The dashboard's alerting engine fires on tokens, not dollars. The spend-relevant

rule type is token_threshold, whose config is { total_tokens } — it fires when

a session's cumulative tokens (input + output + cache_read + cache_write) cross the

threshold. To turn a dollar budget into a token ceiling:

blended_rate_per_token = total_cost / total_tokens          # from /api/pricing/cost
token_ceiling          = budget_dollars / blended_rate_per_token

Compute total_tokens by summing the four token columns across the cost breakdown.

Rule fields explained

| Field | Meaning |

|-------|---------|

| name | Human label shown in the alert feed (e.g. "Monthly $50 budget"). Required, non-empty. |

| rule_type | "token_threshold" for a spend guardrail. (Other types: event_pattern, inactivity, status_duration — not spend-related.) |

| config.total_tokens | Positive integer token ceiling. A session crossing it fires the alert. Derive from the dollar budget as above. |

| enabled | true to arm immediately (default), false to stage it. |

| cooldown_seconds | Minimum seconds between re-fires for the same scope. Default 300. Raise it (e.g. 3600) so a single overspending session doesn't spam the feed. |

Report Sections

1. Current spend snapshot

From /api/pricing/cost: total_cost, total tokens, and the blended $/Mtok rate. State how much of the proposed budget is already consumed.

2. Budget interpretation

Restate the parsed budget (amount + period). If converting dollars → tokens, show the blended rate and the token_ceiling arithmetic.

3. Existing guardrails

List any token_threshold rules from /api/alerts/rules so the user sees what is already in place; warn before creating a near-duplicate.

4. Proposed alert rule

Show the exact JSON body you would POST, with each field annotated. Then give the ready-to-run command (only run it on explicit confirmation):

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:4820/api/alerts/rules \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"name":"Monthly $50 budget","rule_type":"token_threshold","config":{"total_tokens":12500000},"cooldown_seconds":3600}'

5. Confirmation

On success, echo the returned rule (id, name, config). Remind the user that the rule is per-session token usage — to track a whole-period dollar budget, pair it with /ccam-cost-guard:forecast and the spend-forecast skill.

Output

Markdown with the snapshot, the conversion math, and the annotated rule body. Currency as USD to 4 decimal places; token counts with thousands separators. Only POST after the user confirms — never create a rule silently.