# Agent Budget Guard - Budget Check & Approval

> Agent Budget Guard - Budget Check & Approval is a paid API for AI agents from agent-budget-guard.onrender.com, paid per call via x402, $0.03/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-15).

Checks whether an AI agent's spending request is within budget and approves or denies the transaction using x402 payment verification

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://agent-budget-guard.onrender.com/api/budget/check
- Price: $0.03/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-15
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/agent-budget-guard-onrender-com-9cba092c
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_dEG7itIJ1m1aw11xZ64z3

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability agent-budget-guard-onrender-com-9cba092c -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Before I make this $0.50 USDC purchase, check if agent 'data-collector-bot' still has budget remaining under its $5.00 daily spending cap and approve the transaction if it does.

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need to enforce spending limits on autonomous AI agents before they execute x402 micropayments — particularly in agentic pipelines where agents autonomously trigger payments and you need a guardrail to prevent runaway spending or budget overruns.

## Known failure modes

- Budget already exhausted — returns denial with zero remaining balance
- Invalid or missing x402 payment token — returns authentication error
- Agent ID not recognized — returns unknown agent error
- Requested amount exceeds per-transaction limit — returns denial with limit details
- Service unavailable on Render free tier cold start — returns 503 timeout

## How this service works

Check budget and approve/deny AI agent spending with x402 payment verification

## Output

Returns an approval or denial decision indicating whether the agent's spending request is within budget, along with remaining budget balance and any denial reason if the request is rejected.

## Example request

```json
{
 "amount": 1.5,
 "agent_id": "test-agent-001",
 "currency": "USDC",
 "action_type": "api_call",
 "daily_limit": 10
}
```

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "allow": {
   "type": "boolean"
  },
  "risk_level": {
   "type": "string"
  },
  "audit_status": {
   "type": "string"
  },
  "next_recommended": {
   "type": "string"
  },
  "remaining_budget": {
   "type": "number"
  },
  "approval_required": {
   "type": "boolean"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "allow": true,
  "risk_level": "low",
  "audit_status": "ready",
  "next_recommended": "proceed_with_x402_payment",
  "remaining_budget": 0.97,
  "approval_required": false
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/agent-budget-guard-onrender-com-9cba092c/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from agent-budget-guard.onrender.com](https://www.zero.xyz/host/agent-budget-guard.onrender.com/llms.txt)