Show HN: OpenClaw plugin – hard budget limits for agent tool calls
github.comOpenClaw agents can loop, pick expensive models, and burn budget before anyone notices. This plugin stops that.
Install:
openclaw plugins install @runcycles/openclaw-budget-guard
Built on the Cycles protocol — reserve budget before execution, commit actual spend after, release the remainder.
Plugin: https://github.com/runcycles/cycles-openclaw-budget-guard
npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@runcycles/openclaw-budget-gua... I'm the author. A few design decisions worth explaining: The model downgrade is the most useful feature for daily use — when
budget drops below a threshold, the plugin silently swaps claude-opus
to claude-sonnet, gpt-4o to gpt-4o-mini. The agent keeps running, just
cheaper. Only at full exhaustion does it stop. The prompt hint (before_prompt_build hook) tells the model its remaining
budget in the system prompt. Models self-regulate when they know the
constraint exists — fewer unnecessary tool calls, shorter responses. The underlying Cycles protocol handles idempotency under retries so
concurrent tool calls don't double-spend against the same budget. Happy to answer questions about the plugin or the protocol.