Enforce an agent's autonomy limits from the event log by sunilp · Pull Request #146 · jamjet-labs/jamjet

sunilp · 2026-10-11T01:43:05Z

The card's autonomy limits were mostly compared against counters that nothing incremented. They are now enforced from the event log, at the shared guard, on every transport.

AgentStepAdmitted is recorded each time the guard lets a step for an agent fire. Iterations, tool calls, tokens, cost, time and consecutive errors are folded from those events over the whole segment chain, so neither state_patch nor a restart can reset them.
A step is admitted with a compare-and-set append that re-runs the check, so two concurrent claims cannot both take the last step.
On a limit the node is blocked and AutonomyLimitReached or CircuitBreakerTripped is recorded. With on_limit_exceeded: escalate_to_human, the step goes through the approval path instead, and an approval releases that one step, once.
New card field max_consecutive_errors (default 3).
The Python worker now reports token usage and cost so those budgets have data.

43 Rust and 8 Python mutants, all killed after unmutated controls. Independently reviewed, and the review's critical finding is fixed in 0a54d9c.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Summary by CodeRabbit

New Features
- Agent autonomy limits are now enforced across HTTP claims and in-process worker execution, including iteration, tool-call, token, cost, time, and consecutive-error limits.
- When a limit is reached, agents can stop or request human approval; each approval authorizes one step.
- Completion reports can include token usage and cost, which are recorded and applied to budgets.
Bug Fixes
- Invalid cost and usage values are rejected or omitted rather than counted toward budgets.

coderabbitai · 2026-10-11T01:43:15Z

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runtime/workers/src/node_guard.rs

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The runtime checks per-agent autonomy limits from run-event usage before admitting steps across HTTP and in-process worker paths. It records admissions and completion usage, supports human-approval escalation, and rejects unsupported supervisor escalation. The Python worker and client forward validated token and cost usage.

Changes

Agent autonomy limits

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Usage policy and event contracts `runtime/agents/src/card.rs`, `runtime/policy/src/autonomy.rs`, `runtime/policy/tests/trading_agent_autonomy.rs`, `runtime/state/src/event.rs`, `runtime/state/src/budget.rs`	Agent cards add consecutive-error and limit-response settings. The policy checks accumulated usage and prospective steps, and the event model adds step-admission records. Policy tests cover limit boundaries and circuit-breaker behavior.
Event-backed guard and step admission `runtime/workers/src/agent_limits.rs`, `runtime/workers/src/node_guard.rs`, `runtime/workers/src/worker.rs`, `runtime/workers/src/lib.rs`, `runtime/workers/src/dispatch_guard.rs`, `runtime/api/tests/agent_autonomy_limits.rs`, `CHANGELOG.md`	The guard checks event-derived usage before execution and records admitted steps. Human escalation uses approval, and completion requires an admitted open step. Integration tests cover limits, escalation, persistence, and competing admissions. The changelog describes the enforcement and rollback behavior.
Completion usage reporting `runtime/api/src/routes.rs`, `sdk/python/jamjet/cli/main.py`, `sdk/python/jamjet/client.py`, `sdk/python/tests/test_worker.py`	The HTTP completion route validates cost and records it with completion events. The Python worker filters token and cost values before submission, and the client includes supplied usage fields in completion requests.

Priority: ➖ Normal

Estimated code review effort: 4 (Complex) | ~60 minutes

Change: Bug fix

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant Worker
  participant node_guard
  participant agent_limits
  participant EventLog
  Worker->>node_guard: guard_item for a step
  node_guard->>agent_limits: plan usage and constraints
  agent_limits->>EventLog: read run events
  EventLog-->>agent_limits: usage and prior admissions
  agent_limits-->>node_guard: plan or refusal
  node_guard->>agent_limits: admit an allowed step
  agent_limits->>EventLog: append AgentStepAdmitted
  node_guard-->>Worker: guard outcome

Merge Risk: 🟡 Moderate · up to 90e76

An agent can exceed its configured tool-call limit when it submits an oversized or malformed tool-call batch. The batch is counted as zero calls, yet its calls still run. Fix this so the guard refuses unreadable batches before merging.

Pre-merge checks | 4 | 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage		Docstring coverage is 72.13% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 122 functions across 15 files. (1 skipped…	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check		Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check		The title clearly and concisely describes the primary change: enforcing agent autonomy limits from event-log data.
Linked Issues check		Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check		Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

Full details: Docstring Coverage

Explanation

Docstring coverage is 72.13% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 122 functions across 15 files. (1 skipped: 1 unsupported.)

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The card's max_iterations and max_tool_calls were compared with counters nothing incremented, time_budget_secs was never read, the circuit breaker never tripped, and the token and cost budgets were checked only for a bounded_autonomous card on an agent node in the in-process worker. A card could declare every limit and none of them held. Every limit is now decided in node_guard, so the claim route and the in-process worker enforce the same thing, at every autonomy level, for every node acting for the agent and for an agent node calling it. The counts come from the run's event log across its segments: each admitted step is recorded as agent_step_admitted, and tokens, cost and failures are read from the step's node_completed or node_failed. A restart or a rollover cannot reset them and a state_patch cannot reach them. The step is recorded by append_event_if with a condition that re-runs the check, so two claims cannot both take the last step. On a limit the node fails for good with autonomy_limit_reached or circuit_breaker_tripped. A card with on_limit_exceeded: escalate_to_human holds the step for an ordinary approval instead, bound and deadlined like any other. The completion route accepts cost_usd (refusing a negative one, which would refund a budget) and records a result for an agent's node only for an item the claim route admitted.

Agent token and cost budgets read what a step reports on completion, and the Python worker reported neither, so a node run by it never counted. The worker now forwards input_tokens, output_tokens and cost_usd from a node's output when they are a spend, and the client sends them.

Review found that an approval of an over-limit step was bound only to the action digest, which advances when the node completes. A failed step's retry, a reclaim or a duplicate item carried the same digest, so one approval released every one of them and also silenced the circuit breaker. An approval given for a policy gate before the limit was reached counted as well, and an approved step skipped the compare-and-set entirely, so a failing card's limit reached meanwhile was not seen. An escalated step now needs an approved request raised for the limit and not yet used: the step records the request it used, and the compare-and-set checks that no other step used it and that no failing card's limit has been reached. A result over HTTP is recorded only while its admitted step is still open, so SQLite's repeated unfenced completion cannot end a newer step. The stop events are recorded once per request, and the Python worker no longer forwards token counts the engine cannot read.

sunilp · 2026-10-11T03:16:11Z

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coderabbitai · 2026-10-11T03:16:19Z

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Actionable comments posted: 1

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Inline comments:
Review comments at @runtime/workers/src/node_guard.rs:
- Around line 535-541: Update `step_tool_calls` to return `Result<u32, String>`
and propagate unreadable pending-call errors instead of counting them as zero.
In `guard_dispatch_in`, record the policy violation and return
`GuardOutcome::Blocked` when counting fails; pass the count to
`agent_limits::plan` only on success.

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⛔ Files ignored due to path filters (4)

docs/architecture/agent-model.md is excluded by !docs/**
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📒 Files selected for processing (16)

CHANGELOG.md
runtime/agents/src/card.rs
runtime/api/src/routes.rs
runtime/api/tests/agent_autonomy_limits.rs
runtime/policy/src/autonomy.rs
runtime/policy/tests/trading_agent_autonomy.rs
runtime/state/src/budget.rs
runtime/state/src/event.rs
runtime/workers/src/agent_limits.rs
runtime/workers/src/dispatch_guard.rs
runtime/workers/src/lib.rs
runtime/workers/src/node_guard.rs
runtime/workers/src/worker.rs
sdk/python/jamjet/cli/main.py
sdk/python/jamjet/client.py
sdk/python/tests/test_worker.py

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step_tool_calls counted an unreadable batch as zero calls, so max_tool_calls relied on the agent card's per-call check refusing the batch first. The count is now an error carrying the batch's audit rule, and the guard blocks on it. Found by CodeRabbit on #146.

sunilp force-pushed the autonomy-budgets branch from 0a54d9c to eb49a03 Compare October 11, 2026 02:04

sunilp force-pushed the allowed-tools-and-signing branch 2 times, most recently from 1fe6f6a to acc528f Compare October 11, 2026 02:05

sunilp force-pushed the autonomy-budgets branch from eb49a03 to 5b2e483 Compare October 11, 2026 02:05

sunilp force-pushed the allowed-tools-and-signing branch from acc528f to 1586997 Compare October 11, 2026 02:09

sunilp force-pushed the autonomy-budgets branch 2 times, most recently from 72c9661 to 8642c2e Compare October 11, 2026 02:19

Base automatically changed from allowed-tools-and-signing to main October 11, 2026 03:02

sunilp added 3 commits October 11, 2026 08:32

sunilp force-pushed the autonomy-budgets branch from 8642c2e to 90e76d4 Compare October 11, 2026 03:02

sunilp marked this pull request as ready for review October 11, 2026 03:03

coderabbitai Bot reviewed Oct 11, 2026

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Comment thread runtime/workers/src/node_guard.rs

sunilp merged commit 91cf64d into main Oct 11, 2026
12 checks passed

sunilp deleted the autonomy-budgets branch October 11, 2026 03:30

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Enforce an agent's autonomy limits from the event log - #146

Enforce an agent's autonomy limits from the event log#146
sunilp merged 4 commits into
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