## Background
The 2026-04-26 incident saw 716M Sonnet 4.6 tokens consumed in a single
trial workspace. Two causes: failed agent executions weren't billed
(addressed by #20065) and the credit-cap gate had been removed from
`WorkflowExecutorWorkspaceService.executeStep` in #19904, leaving no
enforcement point at all.
## Why not just revert #19904#19904 was right that gating at the workflow executor is too coarse.
When one user exhausted a workspace's credits via chat, *all* workflows
hard-failed mid-run — including cheap DB/CRUD/branch automations costing
essentially nothing. Reverting would re-introduce that cliff.
## New design: gate at the AI entry points
The chat resolver already gates this way
(`agent-chat.resolver.ts:137-148`). This PR replicates the same pattern
at every other point where the workspace can incur real AI cost:
- `executeAgent` in `agent-async-executor.service.ts`
- the REST handler in `ai-generate-text.controller.ts`
- `generateThreadTitle` in `agent-title-generation.service.ts`
In each, after auth/validation: skip if `IS_BILLING_ENABLED` is false;
otherwise call `BillingService.canBillMeteredProduct(workspaceId,
BillingProductKey.WORKFLOW_NODE_EXECUTION)`; on `false`, throw
`BillingException(BILLING_CREDITS_EXHAUSTED)`. No new method, no new
exception code, no new product key.
This matches industry convention (Lovable/Replit also gate at the
expensive-operation boundary, not at every cheap step).
## Deliberately not gated
- `WorkflowExecutorWorkspaceService.executeStep` — the design choice is
now intentional, so the #19904 TODO is replaced by a one-line
absolute-behavior comment explaining why the gate isn't here. Cheap
workflow steps (DB CRUD, branching, action steps) are not gated, so a
chat-driven cap exhaustion does not block non-AI automations.
- `repair-tool-call.util` — repair is a sub-call inside an already-gated
AI flow. If the parent is gated, repair will naturally not run. Adding a
gate here adds complexity without value.
## Net effect
A workspace that exhausts credits via chat or AI agent stops making AI
calls. Its non-AI workflows continue running normally. A workflow with
both AI and non-AI steps fails at the AI step with
`BILLING_CREDITS_EXHAUSTED`, but downstream non-AI steps that don't
depend on the AI output still run.
## Conflicts
This PR overlaps with three other in-flight PRs in the same files. None
of them touch the gate logic; rebasing on top of any of them is trivial:
- #20065 (agent-async-executor): adds `workspaceId` to `executeAgent`
args and bills in `finally`. The gate at the top of `executeAgent` from
this PR sits naturally above that.
- #20066 (REST controller): adds usage billing to the controller.
- #20067 (title gen): adds usage billing to title generation and
tool-call repair.
Recommend landing #20065/#20066/#20067 first; this PR rebases trivially
on top.
## Tests
Out of scope per the PR series convention. The existing chat-resolver
gate isn't unit-tested either; this PR follows the same precedent.
Follow-up: add integration coverage that exercises a workspace at
`hasReachedCurrentPeriodCap=true` against each of the three new gates
plus the pre-existing chat-resolver gate.
## Future follow-ups
- Per-user soft cap inside a workspace (the Lovable Business-tier
pattern), so one user can't exhaust the workspace's cap.
- Pre-flight cost estimate so the user sees an "approaching cap" warning
before the hard stop.
- Rename `BillingProductKey.WORKFLOW_NODE_EXECUTION` — the name predates
this design choice and is misleading now that it gates AI entry points
rather than workflow nodes.
## Test plan
- [ ] Trigger a workspace into `hasReachedCurrentPeriodCap=true`.
- [ ] Send a chat message — expect failure with
`BILLING_CREDITS_EXHAUSTED`.
- [ ] Run a workflow whose only AI step is an `ai-agent` action — expect
that step to fail with `BILLING_CREDITS_EXHAUSTED`, downstream non-AI
steps still run.
- [ ] POST to `/rest/ai/generate-text` — expect
`BILLING_CREDITS_EXHAUSTED`.
- [ ] Create a new chat thread (which kicks off `generateThreadTitle`) —
expect `BILLING_CREDITS_EXHAUSTED`.
- [ ] Run a workflow with no AI step (only DB CRUD/branching/actions) —
expect it to run unaffected.
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Félix Malfait
842e679cc6