spend-gate

Every billable action gets its own gate, every time: estimate → balance → explicit yes → log. A budget, a spend cap, or an earlier "go ahead with the plan" is context, not approval.

1. Classify: pod/instance creation, paid deploys, MCP create/deploy/run/start/update tools on a paid provider (e.g. job submits, endpoint updates, pod start), per-token or per-request paid APIs. Unsure → treat as billable.
2. Estimate: unit price × hours/tokens/requests. Prefer the tool's own quote or dry run; else the provider's pricing page, cited with URL and read date. Remembered prices don't count.
3. Balance: the provider's read-only billing/balance call if one exists (e.g. Runpod MCP list-billing; it shows spend history, not credit, so say which you got). No free balance read → say so in the gate and ask the user for the balance or to confirm it; never skip this step. Read-only calls only.
4. Gate: show the command, unit price + source, estimated total, live balance. Wait for an explicit yes to this action, repeats of approved actions included.
5. Log before running, in skilleddocs/spend.md (create with header):

   | when (local) | amount | purpose | price source | resource id |
   |---|---|---|---|---|

   Fill the resource id into the same row once known. A declined gate is logged too: one row, amount 0, purpose starting "declined:". Untracked → exclude skilleddocs/ per TRACKING.md (it also covers the pip install . hazard).
6. Run, then for anything that bills while idle (pod, instance, endpoint, volume): give the teardown or auto-stop now, and remind again when the work is done.

Blocked by the spend-guard hook → HOOK.md.