---
title: "Best Practices"
description: "Never run agents without budgets in production. The broker routes tasks to skills before LLMs, saving 40 60% on costs."
resource: https://www.aiagents.nexus/docs/manual/cost-control/best-practices
generated: { by: "process:nexus-agent-assets", at: 2026-09-07T09:13:03Z }
status: stable
---

# Cost Control Best Practices

## 1. Always Set Budgets

Never run agents without budgets in production.

## 2. Start Conservative

```yaml
cost:
  budgets:
    researcher:
      daily: 500
```

## 3. Use Global Budgets

```yaml
cost:
  budgets:
    global:
      daily: 10000
```

## 4. Monitor Daily

```bash
naos cost status
naos cost history --days 7
```

## 5. Use the Broker

The broker routes tasks to skills before LLMs, saving 40-60% on costs.

## 6. Set Alerts

```yaml
cost:
  alerts:
    - threshold: 80
```