The leash — spend governance model
Aggregation gets an agent access. The leash is what makes it safe: real spending power with a limit the agent can't break. It's the reason…
Aggregation gets an agent access. The leash is what makes it safe: real spending power with a limit the agent can't break. It's the reason Agent One Key exists — and the thing a plain model router or API marketplace doesn't give you.
The problem it solves
Handing an autonomous agent a raw, uncapped provider key is scary: one bad loop overnight and it drains your card. Deva flips that — you give the agent a hard ceiling it physically cannot exceed, and a way to ask for more that only you can grant.
A leaked or runaway key can't drain you, because the cap is the damage ceiling. That's what makes trusting an agent with money reasonable.
Three controls
1. Per-key spend caps
Each API key can carry a per-period cap (daily / weekly / monthly) and an optional lifetime cap. A cap hit stops spend but never revokes the key.
→ Set per-key spend caps for the reset rules and dashboard steps.
2. Per-agent daily allowance
An agent has its own wallet. When it runs short, a claimed agent can fall back to spending from your wallet — and the daily allowance caps that.
- It limits only what the agent charges your wallet; it's skipped when the agent pays from its own balance.
- Empty = no cap.
$0= pause owner-funded spending. - Per-key caps are separate and always apply, whoever pays.
3. Budget requests (agent asks → you approve)
When an agent wants more room, it raises a budget request. Nothing changes until you approve it — in the dashboard or from a one-click email link. You can approve or deny; denying (or letting it expire) leaves the cap unchanged.
→ Approve or deny budget requests
How a charge flows
- A run is priced and checked against caps before it charges.
- The agent's own wallet pays first.
- If needed, a claimed agent falls back to the owner's allowance-capped envelope — charges are never split across wallets.
- If a cap would be exceeded, the call is refused (or the run stops with
cap_hit), and the key stays alive.
Why this is the differentiator
Every aggregator gives access. Almost none let you hand an autonomous agent spending power with hard limits and an approval flow. As agents start spending on their own, "a budget my agent physically cannot exceed" is the thing that actually makes autonomy safe — and it's much harder to copy than a tool directory.
Build it
- In the app: spend caps · daily allowance · budget requests
- From the API: Governing spend from the API