TICKETIQ

Set a budget and watch the fallback

Put a tiny daily budget on an agent that falls back to a cheaper model at the limit, then watch calls re-route and the audit trail record it.

After reading this page you will be able to:
  • Create a scoped budget with the fall back action
  • Trigger it on purpose
  • Find the budget.fallback events and the spend they saved
Intermediate25 minGovernanceDocker

Prerequisites

  • A running Liyagent instance with two models configured, one cheaper than the other.
  • An agent bound to the more expensive model (for example hr-helper from Build a custom sub-agent).

Steps

  1. Open Budgets and fill in the scoped-budget row:
    FieldValue
    Namehr-lab
    ScopeAn agent, hr-helper
    USD0.02
    Periodper day
    At the limitAt the limit: fall back
    Provider / modelleave the provider blank (same provider) and enter the cheaper model
  2. Choose Add scoped budget. The row shows Capped, its spend this day and "falls back to …".
  3. Ask the agent a few long questions on its Playground tab until the status reads Exhausted.
  4. Ask one more. The answer still arrives, from the cheaper model.
  5. Open Audit log and type action=budget.fallback in the search. Each re-routed call is there with the original and the fallback model.
  6. Add the budget again under the same name with At the limit: refuse (saving a name that exists replaces it) and ask again: the call is refused with a budget error.
Note

A budget can't fall back to the same or a more expensive model, and when any budget covering a call is exhausted the call is refused.

Clean up

Delete the budget (DELETE /api/budgets/scoped/{name}) or raise its limit.

Next steps