Token Budget
A limit on how many tokens an agent may use for a task.
Why it matters
Token budgets force efficiency — the agent learns to be concise with AI calls.
In practice
Each Paperclip agent has a daily token budget. Chat Agent gets ~500K tokens/day of Claude API; Website Agent gets 0.
Related terms
Budget Controls
Spending limits per agent, workflow, or company that prevent runaway API costs.
Token
The unit of text an AI model processes. Approximately 3/4 of a word.
Cost Tracking
Monitoring every AI call: model used, tokens in/out, cost, cache status. Essential for profitable operations.
Paperclip
An open-source orchestration platform that models company structures for AI agents: org charts, budgets, governance.