Designing spend limits an agent can reason about

Early on, our agents kept hitting declines they could not explain. The budget was set, the card was valid, and the payment still failed because of a velocity rule nobody had told the agent about.

So we changed the contract. Every card now comes with its policy attached as configuration: the budget left, the merchant lock, the categories allowed and the approval threshold. An agent can check whether a purchase will pass before it tries.

Fewer declines, better decisions

In our own testing, agents that read the policy first cut their declined attempts by more than half, and asked for human approval only when it was genuinely needed. The limits did not get looser. They just stopped being a surprise.