# Step Budget

> Cap the number of tool calls or loop iterations the agent is allowed within a single request.

- **Category**: Agentic AI
- **Subcategory**: Safety & Control
- **Canonical URL**: https://designpattern.fyi/patterns/step_budget/

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## Description
**Intent**: Cap the number of tool calls or loop iterations the agent is allowed within a single request.
**Context**: A team runs an agent inside some kind of loop — a ReAct loop, a plan-execute loop, a multi-agent debate — where the model is invoked repeatedly to take more steps until it decides it is finished. Each loop iteration costs model tokens, tool-call money, and wall-clock time, and the loop has no naturally bounded length: the model itself decides when to stop. In real traffic, some sessions wander into pathological states where the model keeps deciding to take one more step.
**Solution**: Define a numeric cap (max_steps=N) in the agent loop. Increment per tool call or per loop iteration. When N is hit, terminate the loop and return the best partial answer with a note that the cap was reached.


## Use Cases
- The agent has any kind of loop (ReAct, plan-execute, debate).
- Cost or latency must have a hard ceiling regardless of the agent's opinion.
- Runaway behaviour must be impossible by construction.





## Trade-offs


### Advantages

- Bounded worst-case cost per request.

- Surfaces pathological prompts as cap-hits.




### Considerations & Drawbacks

- Can hide deeper bugs (the agent really should stop earlier).

- Choosing N is empirical.







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**Reference**: [Original Source](https://www.agentpatternscatalog.org/patterns/step-budget/)