assurance-budget

What did a coding-agent session actually do — and which limits did a run log never test?

Install

pip install assurance-budget
# or: pip install assurance   # every tool

Quick start

Session audit (Claude Code transcript — the command most people want):

$ assurance audit examples/audit/sample-session.jsonl
Claude Code session demo-8f2 — 13 min in /home/you/my-app
10 tool calls, 3 failed — Bash 6, Edit 2, Grep 1, Read 1

  Looped: 3 rounds of Bash `pytest -q tests/test_invoice.py` failing the same way, with nothing new read
  After the last edit (14:09): no test or check it recognises; 2 unclassified commands ran after it (make lint-fix, python script)
  Against the last prompt (14:00, "The invoice totals are off by a cent for EUR. Fix it in inv…"):
    invoice.py: changed at 14:04 (src/billing/invoice.py).
    pytest -q tests/test_invoice.py: did not run after the last edit to src/billing/rates.py (14:09); it last failed at 14:08, before that.
    Only what the last prompt names is checked here; whether the work does what it asks is not.
  Not classified: 2 shell commands (make lint-fix, python script), so whether they read, wrote or tested anything is unknown.
  Also in the transcript: 1 assistant turn, 1 user turn, 1 bookkeeping record.
  Not read: 0 lines.

assurance audit --demo prints this from any folder, and assurance audit --session <id> audits one session by its id, opening that session's transcript and no other (the Claude Code plugin's /assurance:audit passes its own). As a Claude Code Stop hook, it runs after every turn and speaks when something is at stake: untested code pushed, merged, published, deployed or committed on main, or shipped while a command the project says must pass or a test the last prompt names had not passed after the edit (check before proceeding); a failed test or check after the last code edit, a change to a path the project protects, or Claude saying the tests pass with nothing behind it (review suggested). --nudge also asks Claude to act (once per turn, and it never fails the session). assurance hook install adds it after showing you the change; assurance hook remove takes it out:

{ "hooks": { "Stop": [ { "hooks": [ { "type": "command", "command": "uvx --offline assurance@0.1.22 audit --hook --nudge" } ] } ] } }

By hand, run uvx assurance@0.1.22 --version once first: --offline runs the copy uv already has, so the hook never waits on PyPI.

Run-log budget (JSONL with a per-run id):

$ assurance-budget runs.jsonl
1 of 3 runs hit a limit — 1 was going nowhere first

  Limits from: built-in defaults

  r-002
      Stopped: 3 rounds repeating fetch(url=api/invoices) and failing the same way (timeout) with nothing new read and no part of the goal closer. Continuing would spend the rest of this run's budget on the same result.
  r-003
      Stopped after 20 frontier calls

  Not tested by this log: iterations, retries. The log carries no events of that kind, so this is silence rather than a pass.

As a library (stops a live loop, rather than reporting after the fact):

from assurance_core.run_budget import Budget, ProgressWatch, Progress, Spend

spend = Spend(budget=Budget.allowing(tool_calls=20))
watch = ProgressWatch()

for step in range(100):
    stopped = spend.charge_tool_call()
    if stopped:
        print(stopped.message)
        break
    stalled = watch.observe(Progress(action="fetch(url=api/invoices)", error="timeout"))
    if stalled:
        print(stalled.message)
        break

assert spend.tool_calls <= 20

Or let the recorder count, and keep the record as it goes. It stops a run only at a limit someone set: the code's limits=, or the operator's settings below, which the code can lower and never raise. watch(client) does the same for an Anthropic or OpenAI client, on a copy it hands back.

import json, tempfile
from pathlib import Path

from assurance_budget.record import Recorder, RunStopped

path = Path(tempfile.mkdtemp()) / "run.jsonl"
with Recorder(path, limits={"tool_calls": 3}) as rec:
    rec.task("Count the open invoices")
    try:
        for page in range(10):
            with rec.tool("fetch", input={"page": page}) as call:
                call.output = f"page {page}: 25 open"
    except RunStopped as stop:
        print(stop.reason)  # Stopped after 3 tool calls — this run's limit is 3. ...
    rec.claim("75 open invoices")

lines = [json.loads(line) for line in path.read_text(encoding="utf-8").splitlines()]
assert [line["type"] for line in lines].count("tool") == 3

What it checks

• Tool calls, failures, and loops in a Claude Code session (assurance audit)
• Whether a test or check ran after the last in-project edit, and whether the last one passed, each read from where the command ran: work in another repository, or one nested in the folder, is not the project's
• Shell commands it could not classify, named by kind (python -c ×3, curl); Not read: lines name why
• Edits with no visible read, in --json (Claude Code itself refuses those, so the text stays quiet)
• Which runs in a JSONL log hit a ceiling or stalled with nothing new read
• Which configured limits the log never exercised (silence, not a pass)
• What the session touched next to what it had: MCP servers used and loaded but never used, skills listed and used, agents, hooks with their runs and failures, and commands typed
• The outcome against what was asked: what happened to the files, tests and commands the last prompt names, and to the project's must_run commands and must_not_touch paths, each with what it could not check
• The same for an agent you wrote, or code that calls a model, from a run record its code writes (assurance.run/1, in the root README): its task, model calls, tools, edits, commands, the checks it made, its last word, and each gate's decision held against what the step then did
• Recorder writes that record from the agent's own code, records each Anthropic or OpenAI SDK call, and stops the run at the limits set for it (assurance_budget.record, below)
• The same for any agent that sends OpenTelemetry traces, from OTLP JSON or what the Python SDK's console exporter prints, read by the GenAI, OpenInference and OpenLLMetry conventions; FileExporter writes one from the tracer an agent already has (assurance_budget.otel, in the root README)
• A run's last word held against what failed: --fail-on-claim exits 1 when a run says it is done and a check did not hold, or a step's last run failed
• assurance serve: a local endpoint any agent sends OTLP traces (protobuf or JSON) or run record lines to, and any workflow asks for a run's audit and verdict (assurance_budget.serve, in the root README)

The outcome

assurance audit --json carries it as outcome, shape assurance.outcome/1. Each check is a typed decision: a question, an answer from a fixed set, the evidence, and why when the answer is unknown. Whether the work does what the prompt asks is not one of them; not_checked says so.

A run record adds run (its id, the other runs in the file, the task's rules and expected outputs, and its last word with what goes against it), model_calls, decisions (shape assurance.decisions/1: each gate's verdict, and held, failed, not checked, did not run, ran anyway or ran before it), and not_recorded, what the record left out that a check needed.

The inventory

assurance audit --json carries it as inventory, shape assurance.inventory/1. Rooms draws it as a page. It is read from the transcript alone, and it counts; whether a server or skill the session carried and never used helped or got in the way is not something a count can say.

In CI

Limits

• Operator ceilings. Built-in defaults in assurance-core; raise via ~/.config/assurance/config.toml or ASSURANCE_MAX_*. Project file <cwd>/.assurance/config.toml can only lower. A caller flag can tighten, never raise past the operator.
• The recorder stops a run only at a limit someone set, in its limits= or the operator's settings; with neither, it records and never stops. It counts tool calls, model calls and seconds, and a limit of 20 lets 20 run. Settings it cannot read are not guessed at: the built-in defaults apply, and it warns.
• It reads what the log records. Unlogged spend is invisible.
• No dollar figure. Frontier calls are the cost proxy.
• Stall detection needs three identical rounds with flat progress.
• A chat transcript with no run id is refused (exit 2), not treated as one run.

See the root README and CHANGELOG.md.