Cycles blocks agent spend before calls

This is a genuinely useful shift from post-hoc spend alerts to pre-execution control for autonomous agents.

• –The reserve-commit model fits the real failure modes of agent systems: runaway loops, retries, and tool storms get blocked before call N+1 can burn more money.
• –The docs frame Cycles as provider-agnostic across OpenAI, Anthropic, LangChain, Vercel AI, and Bedrock, which makes it easier to slot into mixed stacks. https://runcycles.io
• –The demo repo is a strong proof point: no real API key, simulated calls, and a clean stop at $1 makes the value prop easy to understand and reproduce. https://github.com/runcycles/cycles-runaway-demo
• –Apache 2.0 plus self-hosting makes this feel like infrastructure for agent ops, not just another billing wrapper.
• –The hard part will be estimation and policy design; enforcement is only as good as the reserved amount and scope rules.