Is this an observability SDK?
No. SDKs observe from the sidelines — they can tell you what happened, not stop it. Flightbox is a managed runway: you run your agent pipelines through it. Deterministic Python owns the loop and agents are bounded nodes inside it, which is why a budget gate can actually halt a run mid-flight instead of just logging that it went over.
What happens exactly when a budget is crossed?
The call that crosses the cap is billed and recorded — you can't un-buy tokens already in flight. Then nothing further runs. The halt, the crossing call, and the full trace up to that point are all in the recording.
How do approvals work if I'm away from my desk?
The chain parks on the pending approval and waits. You can grant it from any terminal. If the timeout passes in silence, that's a denial — the run does not proceed on an assumed yes.
Where does my trace data live?
Entirely on your machine: a SQLite trace inside your repo, read by a local UI. Nothing is sent anywhere — there is no account and no server involved. Flightbox Cloud will add an optional hosted store so teammates can share timelines across repos; until you opt into that, your traces never leave your disk.
What exactly do I get for $29, $149 or $499 today?
A locked-in rate and a founding place in Flightbox Cloud — plus the knowledge that you funded it. You do not get extra features in the core, because the core has no locked features: budget caps, the halt, approval gates, cost estimates, replay and roll-ups are all in the free MIT release right now. If you want the software, take it for free. Pay only if you want the org-wide layer to exist and want your price fixed before it does.
Why is the halt free? Isn't that the whole product?
It's the whole point, which is exactly why it shouldn't be behind a paywall. A budget cap you have to buy before it protects you is a hostage, not a safety feature — and a governor that only some runs have is worse than useless, because you stop checking. So the stop is free on every install, forever. What costs money is proving it: showing your client's compliance team, or your CFO, that the policy held across every repo and every developer, months later, in a form they'll accept. That's a different job, and it's the one Cloud does.
What counts as "governed spend"?
The dollars your agents actually spend on runs that Flightbox is governing — the same number the recorder already sums for you. Not your Flightbox bill, not your total cloud bill. Plans are banded by it rather than by seats because seats are meaningless here: the thing consuming the product is an agent, not a person. Go over your band and you're billed $12 per additional $1,000 governed, and I'll nudge you to move up after three months. Your governor is never switched off for a billing reason — halting your halt over an invoice would be indefensible.
When does Flightbox Cloud ship?
It's in active development and I won't quote a date I can't stand behind. Your card isn't charged for 14 days, you can cancel any time from the receipt Stripe emails you, and if you're still waiting longer than you think is reasonable, email me and I'll refund you — no argument.
If the core is MIT and free, what stops me just self-hosting all of it?
Nothing, and that's deliberate. Fork it, run it, modify it, ship it inside your own product — MIT means what it says. Cloud is worth paying for only if you'd rather not run a shared trace store, auth, and alerting yourself. That's the honest trade, and if self-hosting suits you better, take the free core with my blessing.
