Budget Rules

Budget rules stop spend before the LLM call fires. When a limit is hit Nolma returns HTTP 429 immediately — the LLM provider never receives the request.

Creating a budget rule

Dashboard → Guard → Budgets → Add rule

Scope types

Scope	What it limits
`org`	All agents in your organization
`agent`	One specific agent by name
`user`	One end user (NM-User header)
`model`	One LLM model
`env`	One environment (prod/staging/dev)

Enforcement modes

Mode	What happens at the limit
`hard_block`	Returns 429, no LLM call made
`auto_downgrade`	Switches to cheaper model
`throttle`	Slows request rate
`alert_only`	Sends alert, allows through

Example rules

Daily limit per agent:

Field	Value
Scope	agent → support-bot
Limit	$15.00
Period	daily
Mode	hard_block
Alert at	80%

Monthly org-wide limit:

Field	Value
Scope	org
Limit	$500.00
Period	monthly
Mode	hard_block
Alert at	70%

Budget templates

New accounts can apply a template from the Budgets page:

Conservative — $10/day hard block. Good for development and testing.
Growth — $100/day soft limit with auto-downgrade at 80%. Good for production startups.
Enterprise — $1,000/month org-wide. Good for regulated companies.

What happens when a limit is hit

Your agent receives:

{
  "error": {
    "type": "NM_BUDGET_HARD_LIMIT",
    "message": "Agent 'support-bot' daily budget of $15.00 exceeded.",
    "spent": 15.43,
    "limit": 15.00,
    "period": "daily",
    "reset_at": "2026-05-22T00:00:00Z",
    "agent": "support-bot"
  }
}

Handle this in your code:

try:
    response = client.messages.create(...)
except anthropic.APIStatusError as e:
    if e.status_code == 429:
        error = e.response.json()["error"]
        if error["type"] == "NM_BUDGET_HARD_LIMIT":
            print(f"Budget hit. Resets: {error['reset_at']}")

Emergency kill switch

Stop ALL agents instantly: Guard → “Pause all agents” button. All LLM calls return 429 immediately. Click “Resume all agents” to restore.

​Budget Rules

​Creating a budget rule

​Scope types

​Enforcement modes

​Example rules

​Budget templates

​What happens when a limit is hit

​Emergency kill switch