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Wardin’s budget model gives managers full control over AI spend at every granularity — per key, per user, and org-wide — enforced atomically before any token is spent.

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Budget hierarchy

All three are checked independently. A request is blocked if any limit is exceeded.

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Step 1: Set up team keys

Create one key per developer or team role: 
# Engineering team — individual keys
for name in alice bob carol; do
  curl -X POST https://api.wardin.ai/v1/keys \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer wardin_sk_ADMIN_KEY" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d "{\"name\": \"$name-dev\", \"monthlyBudgetUsd\": 100}"
done

# Shared CI key
curl -X POST https://api.wardin.ai/v1/keys \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer wardin_sk_ADMIN_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "engineering-ci", "monthlyBudgetUsd": 300, "rpmLimit": 20}'

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Step 2: Configure alerts

Set a webhook alert so you’re notified before budgets run out: Console → Webhooks → Add endpoint 
{
  "url": "https://hooks.slack.com/...",
  "events": ["budget.threshold_reached"],
  "thresholdPercent": 80
}

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Step 3: Distribute keys

Send each developer their wardin_sk_ key. They set it as ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN (and ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://gw.wardin.ai) in their environment. No other changes to their workflow.

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Budget increase requests

Developers can request a budget increase from MY LANE in the dashboard. Requests land in LEDGER, where you can approve, deny, or set an expiry date for temporary increases.
  • Approved with expiry: The limit is elevated immediately and automatically reverts at the expiry date.
  • Approved permanent: The limit is raised and stays until you change it.
  • Revoked: You can revoke an approved increase at any time before expiry.
The full request history is retained as an audit trail.

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Viewing spend

Overview shows org-wide spend and allocation; LEDGER breaks it down by team and developer. Each developer sees their own sessions with per-session cost under MY LANE. To pull spend data programmatically: 
curl "https://api.wardin.ai/v1/analytics/usage?period=2025-01" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer wardin_sk_ADMIN_KEY"
RoleSuggested monthly budget
Individual contributor (interactive)50–50–150
Senior / staff (heavy AI usage)150–150–300
CI / automation200–200–500
Tenant ceilingSum of key budgets × 1.2
Start conservative — developers can request increases self-serve, and approvals apply instantly.