The Two-Layer Budget Problem
Request
SOFT LAYER — Platform Allocation Tracking
Per-team / per-project budgets, dashboards, alerts
Fast, queryable, advisory — believes it's authoritative
Team says: "$4,000 left"
(soft-layer belief)
HARD LAYER — Provider Billing Enforcement
Actual account-level spend cap, enforced by the provider
Doesn't know or care about the soft layer's bookkeeping
Account says: "$500 left"
(hard-layer reality)
⚠ Trapped Capacity
Soft layer believes $4,000 is spendable.
Hard layer will only ever allow $500 of it.
A request clears the soft allocation check, then hits the hard provider cap. When the two disagree, the gap between them is capacity nobody can actually use.