The Visible Cost

Spent an hour watching the agent hallucinate a fix. Same wrong path, three different ways. Each attempt: a few cents in tokens, a few minutes of waiting, and a small drop in something harder to measure.

The tokens show up in a dashboard. The enthusiasm doesn't.

That's the part worth watching. Not the cost per run — the slow erosion of wanting to keep going. By the time the fix landed, I wasn't celebrating. I was just relieved it was over.

The tool didn't fail. The constraint did. No clear boundary on what the agent should attempt before stopping and asking.

Enthusiasm is a resource. It depletes without a line item.