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Agents is in private beta, so things may change. If you hit a problem, tell us via Support & feedback.
Agents use AI credits, the same credits as the rest of Hercules. Set run limits so a single run can never spend more, or take longer, than you allow.
Run limits card with a 50 credit spend limit and a 20 minute time limit

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What costs credits?

Only runs show up in the charts on Analytics. Auto-improve, scoring, and run summaries appear under Spend by source on that same page. Generating isn’t counted against one Agent at all, so it appears in neither. Look for it on your Organization’s AI Credits page.

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How do I limit a single run?

Go to Build → More → Run limits. Leave a box empty for no limit. A run that goes over stops, and says so in Run history as “Stopped at cost limit” or “Stopped at time limit”. The limit applies to each run on its own, not to a total across runs. Later runs aren’t affected, so this stops one runaway rather than pausing your Agent.
Limits are checked between steps, so a run can go slightly over while it finishes the step it’s already on. Set the limit a little below your real ceiling.

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How do I limit Auto-improve?

Set the credit and time caps under Behavior on Auto-improve → Configure, and say how many runs one analysis reads. The credit and time caps can be left empty for no cap. The number of runs is required, from 1 to 50. See Auto-improve.

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How do I bring costs down?

  • Drop the model tier if the job doesn’t need the top one
  • Remove tools the Agent never uses
  • Filter evaluations by tag while you’re still tweaking, instead of running everything
  • Grade a sample of real runs instead of all of them, or turn that off
  • Keep your list of guardrails tight, since each one is checked during the run

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Additional FAQ

No. Limits change how your Agent runs, not what it is, so they save straight away. See Versions.
On the AI Credits page. Credits are shared across your Organization, so Agents and app building use the same balance.
No. Runs stopped by a limit, and runs you stopped yourself, aren’t counted as failures on Analytics, though they’re still part of the total the rate is measured against.
Watch Credits per run on Analytics for a week, then set your spend limit a few times higher than a typical run. That catches a runaway without getting in the way of normal work.