Token-Economy Blindness
Anti-pattern: operate multi-agent loops with no per-run token budget or alarm, allowing recursive loops to silently accumulate $10k+ in undetected costs.
Problem
Cost can accumulate to five figures before anyone notices. Discovery happens via the monthly invoice, not via the system. Distinct from existing cost-observability (which is the positive pattern) and unbounded-loop (which is control-flow): this names the *cost-monitoring absence*, the failure to attach an economic ceiling per logical run.
Solution
Route every model call through a metering gateway that tracks tokens per run id. Set per-run budgets matched to expected output shape. Enforce hard termination at budget exhaustion. Alarm on velocity anomalies (e.g. tokens-per-minute exceeding mean+3σ for the run class). Pair with cost-observability (positive pattern) and step-budget.
When to use
- Never. Cite when reviewing multi-agent recursive systems.
- Set per-run budgets and gateway-enforce termination at exhaustion.
- Alarm on token-velocity anomalies in real time.
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