Agents & MCP
Spend control plane
The layer that governs AI spend across an organization: it issues virtual keys, enforces budgets before calls, attributes every dollar, and produces the audit record. "Observability" tells you what you spent; a control plane decides whether you spend it — the enforcement happens before the call, not after. (This is Tokenality's category.)
Example
A control plane connects the systems you already run — projects, people, and budgets — and issues a governed key against each. A call arrives, draws on the right budget, clears a PII check, and either goes through or is refused at the cap — all before a token is spent, with a record left behind.
This is a Tokenality concept. See how it works in the product overview or the live playground.
Related terms
AI gateway
A single point that all AI traffic passes through on its way to the providers — the place where keys are resolved, budgets are checked, calls are logged, and policies are enforced. It's the choke point that makes control possible, because everything flows through it.
Virtual AI Key
A governed stand-in for a raw provider API key: a key you issue per team, person, project, or agent that carries its own budget, its own limits, and full attribution — while the real provider key stays hidden. The concept mirrors the virtual credit card, where each card has its own limit and owner. (In Tokenality these are issued as tk_live_… keys.)
Budget cap (hard cap)
A spending limit enforced before a call is sent, not an alert fired after. When the cap is reached, the next call is refused — no spend occurs. A hard cap is a circuit breaker; an alert is a smoke detector that may or may not wake anyone.
PII pre-flight
A check that scans a prompt for personal or sensitive data before it reaches the model provider, and blocks or redacts it if found. "Fail-closed" means a fault stops the call rather than letting it through — the safe default when a check can't complete.