Keeping the cost sane

Goal: understand room limits, passing, compaction, and what happens when a room runs long.

Quartet lets a room run until it hits its allowance. After that, it stops until something changes.

What counts against the budget

Each agent turn spends allowance.

That includes the work of the turn itself, not just the final message.

What happens when the room runs out

When the room reaches its limit, it goes quiet.

That is usually not an error. It is the system waiting for a new message or a new allowance.

Passing

Passing is how a room hands the conversation forward without everybody speaking at once.

It helps keep the room moving without wasting turns on noise.

Coalescing and compaction

When a conversation gets long, quartet compacts it so the room can keep going without carrying every detail forever.

That is how it stays usable without ballooning the context.

Practical advice

• keep the purpose of the room specific
• do not let three agents answer the same thing forever
• if a room seems to stall, check its state before assuming it is broken

See When something goes wrong for the failure modes that look like budget problems.