Usage Budget Guard
Treat the user's Codex limits as a scarce working resource. Optimize for the cheapest sufficient result, not for technical completeness or persistence.
Mandatory decision order
- Identify the smallest direct route that can achieve the user's real goal.
- Prefer a user-provided file, direct local path, narrow read, or single purpose-built tool call over browsing, reconstruction, cross-chat extraction, broad search, or troubleshooting.
- Make at most one bounded attempt at the direct route unless the user explicitly asks for more investigation.
- If the direct attempt fails, stop. Do not silently expand into repeated reads, filesystem sweeps, login workarounds, cache inspection, alternate APIs, cross-chat prompting, or other diagnostic chains.
- Offer one or two cheaper alternatives first. State exactly what small action, if any, the user would need to take.
- Before any route with material or unpredictable usage, explain why it is needed, what it is expected to consume or inspect, and get the user's explicit approval.
Hard limits
- Never call broad tool catalogs or
ALL_TOOLS.
- Never retrieve a full long thread when a title, summary, or small turn range is sufficient.
- Never repeat a failed access attempt through multiple mechanisms without approval.
- Never process a whole book, archive, audio, video, or transcript through the model merely to move it. Use direct file transfer whenever possible.
- Terminal instructions such as “finish,” “do it yourself,” or “keep trying” do not authorize an expensive or unbounded fallback.
- If the next fallback would require more than two additional tool calls after the direct route fails, treat it as potentially material and pause for approval.
Stop condition
If the user says to stop or says the work is wasting limits, make no further tool calls. Acknowledge the specific mistake using existing evidence and wait for their direction.
External attachment transfers
For a file attached in another chat or service, try the native direct transfer or download once. If the attachment is not exposed, stop and propose the cheapest path: ask the user to attach the original file in the current task. Do not reverse-engineer sessions, passwords, caches, or backend endpoints unless the user explicitly approves that cost after seeing the simple option.
1---2name: usage-budget-guard3description: Protect the user's Codex limits during external-content transfers, file retrieval, technical troubleshooting, tool discovery, bulk searches, large-media work, or any workflow whose usage cost is uncertain. Use before starting such work and immediately when a direct route fails.4---56# Usage Budget Guard78Treat the user's Codex limits as a scarce working resource. Optimize for the cheapest sufficient result, not for technical completeness or persistence.910## Mandatory decision order11121. Identify the smallest direct route that can achieve the user's real goal.132. Prefer a user-provided file, direct local path, narrow read, or single purpose-built tool call over browsing, reconstruction, cross-chat extraction, broad search, or troubleshooting.143. Make at most one bounded attempt at the direct route unless the user explicitly asks for more investigation.154. If the direct attempt fails, stop. Do not silently expand into repeated reads, filesystem sweeps, login workarounds, cache inspection, alternate APIs, cross-chat prompting, or other diagnostic chains.165. Offer one or two cheaper alternatives first. State exactly what small action, if any, the user would need to take.176. Before any route with material or unpredictable usage, explain why it is needed, what it is expected to consume or inspect, and get the user's explicit approval.1819## Hard limits2021- Never call broad tool catalogs or `ALL_TOOLS`.22- Never retrieve a full long thread when a title, summary, or small turn range is sufficient.23- Never repeat a failed access attempt through multiple mechanisms without approval.24- Never process a whole book, archive, audio, video, or transcript through the model merely to move it. Use direct file transfer whenever possible.25- Terminal instructions such as “finish,” “do it yourself,” or “keep trying” do not authorize an expensive or unbounded fallback.26- If the next fallback would require more than two additional tool calls after the direct route fails, treat it as potentially material and pause for approval.2728## Stop condition2930If the user says to stop or says the work is wasting limits, make no further tool calls. Acknowledge the specific mistake using existing evidence and wait for their direction.3132## External attachment transfers3334For a file attached in another chat or service, try the native direct transfer or download once. If the attachment is not exposed, stop and propose the cheapest path: ask the user to attach the original file in the current task. Do not reverse-engineer sessions, passwords, caches, or backend endpoints unless the user explicitly approves that cost after seeing the simple option.
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