Godmode Budget

Outcome

Spend is read from local records and compared with declared ceilings before more is spent, the series of past sessions is shown with its unmeasured gaps stated, and a release's burn is one table of counts beside the gate activity it paid for, with no causal claim attached.

Use

• A session's token, tool-call or wall-clock spend looks out of proportion to the task.
• A run ceiling is declared and the current spend must be checked against it before continuing.
• A release took more password rounds, preflight minutes or suite reruns than planned.
• The brief budget or a verb's timing needs a local measurement, not a guess.

Do Not Use

• Detecting and cutting off a repeating fix-and-retry loop - that is godmode-loop-warden.
• Checking fragments or building the release notes - that is godmode-changelog.
• Scoring a skill's routing against its baseline - that is godmode-skill-eval.

Deterministic Execution Flow

1. Check the spend against the ceilings. godmode ceilings --spent tokens=<n>,tool_calls=<n>,seconds=<n> - the reported spend against every declared run ceiling; a breached ceiling is the stop, not a warning.
2. Read the series, gaps included. godmode trends --sessions 20 - per-session token, tool-call and test-run counts as a time series; an unmeasured session reads as a gap, never interpolated.
3. Fold burn beside the gate. godmode roi --sessions 20 - counts only: burn beside refusals and asks, no causal claim; godmode roi --releases - per release tag range: password rounds, refusals by category, preflight runs and minutes, suite runs repeated for one HEAD.
4. Measure what a guess would have stood in for. godmode benchmark - brief budgets and timings, locally; godmode metrics --window 500 - whether the product works, from local records only.
5. Record the decision the numbers support. godmode remember --kind decision --subject "budget:<session or release>" --value "<what is cut, kept or raised, and why>" --evidence seq:<the ceilings or roi record>.
   • Fallback: a ceiling breached with no decision recorded stays a breach; the next session start names it until a decision cites it.

Read PURPOSE.md for the archive records this skill exists to close.

Must Not

• Never raise a ceiling to make a breach disappear; instead record the decision that raises it, with its reason and evidence.
• Never fill an unmeasured session with an estimate; instead report it as the gap the series shows.
• Never read a burn count as a cause of a gate outcome; instead report the two side by side as the counts they are.
• Never quote a timing without a local measurement behind it; instead run the benchmark and cite its record.

Acceptance

• Every ceiling breach on the record has a decision citing it.
• The reported series names each unmeasured session as a gap.

If an assertion cannot be proved, report the unmet assertion and the next safe action rather than the outcome it was meant to prove.