Allowances

An allowance is a metered budget of agent time, such as one person’s agent subscription, that a machine spends from when it runs flights. Allowances are measured over two windows: a session window, the short one a provider resets most often, and a week window, which is the last seven days. Use this guide to see what an allowance has left, to keep part of one back for its owner (a floor), and, as an administrator, to spend that part when the need is urgent.

When a person lends a machine to the fleet, the machine’s flights spend that person’s allowance. A floor is how they lend it without lending all of it.

Prerequisites

To report an allowance, the machine’s configuration names it with the allowance setting. Naming one is how a person says they are lending it:
Terminal window
```
gg config set allowance ada-subscription
```
To see a share of each window instead of a raw count, the machine also needs the window ceilings, as whole numbers of tokens:
Terminal window
```
gg config set allowance-limits session=88000,week=2400000
```
Nothing on a machine can discover a subscription’s limits, so they are typed by a person. Without them, gg shows the tokens spent and says that no ceiling is set.

1. See what this machine has spent

gg allowance reads this machine’s own agent transcripts and contacts nothing:

gg allowance

allowance ada-subscription, measured 2026-10-14 15:10:02Z

  session           41,250 of 88,000         46%
  week           1,108,400 of 2,400,000      46%

Each window gives the tokens spent and, when it can, how much of the window that is. The share comes from the best source available: the provider’s own figure when the agent has reported one, otherwise the configured ceiling. When the provider’s window has reset since its figure was reported, gg says so instead of showing a share for a window that has ended.

The week window counts the last seven days, which is probably not the provider’s own week. It may therefore show less headroom than there really is, never more.

2. Tell the fleet

gg allowances report sends this machine’s reading to the control plane, then prints every allowance in the fleet:

gg allowances report

3. See every allowance in the fleet

gg allowances

ada-subscription  measured 2026-10-14 15:10:02Z  2 machines
  session           41,250 of 88,000         46%
  week           1,108,400 of 2,400,000      46%

The allowance is listed with the machines under it, not the other way round, because two machines can share one allowance and their spending should not be added twice. When no machine has reported an allowance, gg says so.

A floor keeps a share of an allowance back for its owners, so that fleet work does not spend all of it. The owners are the people whose machines report the allowance, and any of them may set its floor. Set it as a whole percentage for either window, or both:

gg allowances floor ada-subscription --week 25
gg allowances floor ada-subscription --session 33 --week 25

Keeping a share of the week and nothing of the session is reasonable: the session refills in hours and the week does not. A floor must keep back more than nothing and less than everything.

To remove a floor:

gg allowances floor ada-subscription --clear

--clear is required to remove one, and cannot be combined with a share. The command with no share at all is refused, so that a forgotten number never clears a floor by accident.

A floor is measured against the window ceilings, so set allowance-limits on the machines that report the allowance.

Both commands print every allowance in the fleet afterwards.

5. Spend someone’s floor

An administrator can spend a floor that someone else set, for a limited time and with a reason:

gg allowances override ada-subscription --minutes 60 --reason "Release fix needs both machines tonight."

--minutes is required, from 1 to 1,440 (one day). An override always ends.
--reason is required, up to 280 characters. The allowance’s owner reads it.

The override is visible to the allowance’s owners, together with who made it and until when. gg prints every allowance in the fleet afterwards.

The same steps in the console

Run gg with no arguments, then u to open the runners tab. On the allowance of this machine, o keeps a share back: 1 keeps a tenth, 2 a quarter, 3 half, and 0 nothing. An administrator whose configuration asks for it can open the fleet’s allowances with v.

The envelope: loops: the agent and model a flight spends from.
Glossary: Fleet: the machines that report allowances.