What Should AI Show When It Runs Out of Budget?

Two new ‘task budget’ features use the same word for different controls. Google’s max_total_tokens is a hard pause: the interaction returns incomplete, its environment remains, and restarting takes a fresh budget. Anthropic calls its task budget advisory. The model sees a countdown and tries to finish gracefully, but the API response does not expose how much budget remains. For someone coming back to unattended work, that distinction matters more than the token count. The stop screen should show the last completed step, any files or records changed, what remains open, whether the state can resume, and what continuing will cost. Otherwise ‘budget reached’ starts a scavenger hunt before the work can safely restart. What would you need to see before adding money and pressing continue?