How to meter agent tool usage
Metering turns tool calls into numbers you can cap, allocate, and explain.
Every tool call should emit usage: which agent, which tool, how many units, and when. Without that, finance and engineering argue from different spreadsheets.
Pick a unit
Tokens, requests, or bytes can all work. Pick one primary unit for billing and keep secondary metrics for ops.
Cap early
Set hard caps per agent and soft alerts per team. Caps protect production when a loop goes wrong.