Credits, limits, and the economics of delegation
The moment software can spend on your behalf, pricing becomes a safety feature. An agent that provisions infrastructure needs something between “cannot do anything” and “unlimited card on file.” Per-seat pricing answers the wrong question because seats measure people, while the heaviest user may be a CI job. The useful unit is a mint credit. One credit costs $0.25, and creating an environment uses one credit whether a human, agent, or CI starts it. Re-running the same branch reuses its healthy environment for free. Cleanup is free too, because the product should never punish reuse or good hygiene.
Agents do not need trust. They need meters.
Limits are the interface
A workspace spend limit turns “how much could automation cost?” from a fear into a number your team chose. New mints stop at the cap with a direct recovery action, while existing environments keep running. Usage history attributes each change to an agent, CI key, or person and shows the affected environment and credit cost. Attribution belongs in the history, not as a surcharge on the bill. Every workspace receives ten free credits each month, with no card required, so a team can connect a real app and experience the full loop before buying more capacity.