Cost attribution for multi-agent systems
Multi-agent cost control requires spend attribution by role, workflow, artifact, and business outcome.
When several agents collaborate, aggregate spend is not enough. Teams need to know which role created value and which role burned budget.
AstraRunner treats this as an execution-platform concern: the run needs durable state, traceable decisions, cost visibility, and enough structure for teams to review what happened after the agent finishes.
Patterns that work
- Attribute model spend to role agents.
- Attach tool spend to the step that requested it.
- Calculate cost per accepted artifact.
- Compare planner, implementer, reviewer, and validator cost.
Implementation checklist
- Create run-level and role-level cost summaries.
- Export costs to finance or billing systems.
- Alert on role-specific anomalies.
- Tie budget overruns to trace evidence.
Watch outs
- Shared context makes attribution tricky.
- Reviewer cost can look wasteful until it prevents incidents.
- Cost without quality encourages underpowered models.
Related reading
How this fits the Astra stack
AstraRunner owns the operational path for agent work: orchestration, scheduling, approval gates, traces, costs, and role-agent handoffs. AstraMemory owns durable context and retrieval. AstraGenie turns those capabilities into product workflows for teams that want automation without rebuilding the platform layer.