Two-tier spend gate

What the engine may spend without a human

Every autonomous financial action passes through this gate. Tier 1 flags, Tier 2 refuses and pulls the kill-switch, and the kill-switch can only be cleared by hand.

Kill-switch

Disarmed

armed — engaging halts everything

Current tier

clear

within budget

Authorised

$900

1 action on the ledger

Tier 1 soft limit

$3,500

70% of $5,000

Tier 2 hard limit

$5,000

100% of the campaign budget

Budget left

$4,100

to the hard limit

The two tiers

Flag first, refuse second, stop completely third

Both limits are a fraction of the client's own campaign budget — the numbers below are this client's real figures, not a generic example.

Tier 1 — soft limit

70% = $3,500

Crossing Tier 1 does not stop the action. It is allowed, written to the ledger, and flagged for a human to acknowledge — the engine marks the action flag_for_human_acknowledgement, and the dashboard turns amber.

Why a soft limit at all: a campaign that suddenly spends 70% of its budget on day two is usually a mistake, not a strategy. The flag puts a human in the loop before the hard limit does it for them.

Remaining to this limit for Full Frequency Co.: $2,600

Tier 2 — hard limit

100% = $5,000

Tier 2 is the hard limit. The action is refused — it never touches the ledger — and the gate auto-engages the kill-switch, whose effect is stop_all_autonomous_financial_actions. Every subsequent financial action is refused until a human clears the switch.

Auto-engage on Tier 2: true. Stopping is always safe to do automatically; starting again is not.

Remaining to this limit for Full Frequency Co.: $4,100

Kill-switch

Manual clearing, with a named human

The switch is persisted on disk. While it is engaged, no autonomous financial action is recorded. Clearing it requires an explicit confirm token and a named actor, and there is no code path anywhere in the engine that clears it by itself.

DISARMED — armed and readyblocks all financial actions: true

Engaged at

— (not engaged this session)

Engaged by

—

Cleared at

—

Cleared by

—

Manual only. Clear via POST /api/spend/kill-switch with engage=false, a named actor and confirm='CLEAR-KILL-SWITCH'. No code path anywhere in the engine clears it automatically.

What counts as a financial action

These action kinds all pass through the same gate. While the kill-switch is engaged, each one is refused with code kill_switch_engaged.

ad_spend_commitpaid_boostinfluencer_paymenttool_subscriptionprint_run_commit

Clearing, as the API enforces it

POST /api/spend/kill-switch
{
  "engage": false,
  "actor": "dana@agency",
  "confirm": "CLEAR-KILL-SWITCH"
}

A missing name, a missing reason or a wrong token leaves the switch engaged. There is no timer, no retry and no automatic release.

Ledgers

One ledger per client namespace

Each client's spend is recorded in its own namespace, so one client's activity can never count against another's budget.

Full Frequency Co.

USDwithin budget

$900 authorisedTier 1 $3,500Tier 2 $5,000

Budget

$5,000

Authorised

$900

Events

State

within budget

allowed$900ad_spend_commitprojected $900

week 1 paid boost — within the approved plan

pipeline/autonomous · 2026-10-02T12:00:00+00:00

Torczon Digital

USDwithin budget

$630 authorisedTier 1 $2,450Tier 2 $3,500

Budget

$3,500

Authorised

$630

Events

State

within budget

allowed$630ad_spend_commitprojected $630

week 1 paid boost — within the approved plan

pipeline/autonomous · 2026-10-02T12:00:00+00:00

Proof, not a promise

What happened when the engine was pushed past Tier 2

Transcript of a real run of the gate in an isolated ledger — this is what the engine did, not a mock-up. The demo campaigns' own ledger (below, under 'live') stays separate and untouched.

#	What was tried	Amount	Decision	HTTP	Kill-switch	Why
1	Allowed Autonomous spend inside Tier 1's shadow: allowed and recorded.	$1,200	allowed allowed	200	disarmed	recorded on the ledger
2	Flagged at Tier 1 Crosses the 70% soft limit: allowed, but flagged for a human to acknowledge.	$2,400	flagged tier1_soft_limit	200	disarmed	flagged for human acknowledgement
3	Refused at Tier 2 Crosses the 100% hard limit: refused, and the kill-switch auto-engages.	$2,000	blocked tier2_hard_limit	423	engaged	projected spend 5600.0 would cross the Tier 2 hard limit 5000.0; the action is refused
4	Refused (kill-switch) Any further financial action is refused while the switch is engaged.	$250	blocked kill_switch_engaged	423	engaged	kill-switch is engaged: every autonomous financial action is halted until a human clears it
5	Cleared by a named human Clearing is manual only: named actor plus the confirm token.	$0		200	disarmed	recorded on the ledger

Refusals the gate kept on record

kill_switch_engaged$250
kill-switch is engaged: every autonomous financial action is halted until a human clears it
tier2_hard_limit$2,000
projected spend 5600.0 would cross the Tier 2 hard limit 5000.0; the action is refused

What this panel does and does not prove

Does prove: the gate really refuses when pushed past the hard limit, really engages the kill-switch automatically, and really requires a named human and a confirm token to release it. The transcript above is a run of that code.
Does not prove: anything about real money. No payment provider is connected, no charge is created, no invoice is issued and no card is touched. Billing is not implemented in this build, and the ledger is a local JSON file, not an accounting system.
Nor: that these limits suit a real client. The 70% / 100% split is the engine's default policy and is meant to be set per agency.