Give the Agent a Budget, Not a Token — Sachin Malhotra, Anthropic
Source
youtube.com
Author
AI Engineer
Date
Why it matters
Scoped tokenThe chunk of text a model reads and writes in — roughly three-quarters of a word — and the unit AI usage is billed in.Full definition → are booleans and don't bound blast radius. Budgeting AI agentAn AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.Full definition → authority along magnitude, rate, reversibility and visibility is a design you can apply to any agent that holds write access.
Terms in this piece · Glossary
AI agent — An AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.
token — The chunk of text a model reads and writes in — roughly three-quarters of a word — and the unit AI usage is billed in.
video1,000 Agent Tasks in a Sandbox: What Breaks When LLMs Run Code — Kevin Orellana, AWS
videoHow Inference Keeps Up with Our Insatiable Need for Tokens — Cerebras & Gimlet Labs
videoAuth for Agents: Let AI Sign Up for Your Product with auth.md — Michael Grinich, WorkOS
videoDecoupling the Brain from the Hands: Claude Managed Agents (Part 1 of 4) — Anthropic
