---
title: "Spend the error budget on purpose · Agent Wranglers"
url: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/service-levels/error-budget
updated: 2026-10-20
licence: "All rights reserved"
---

# Spend the error budget on purpose

By Erik Bergstedt, Agent Wranglers. Updated 2026-10-20.

- Level: Recommended
- Chapter: [Service levels](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/service-levels)
- Rule: Treat the gap between 100% and the target as a budget. When it runs out, pause risky releases and fix reliability first.
- How: With a 99.9% target over 28 days, about 40 minutes of failure is allowed (0.1% of 40,320 minutes). Agree in advance what happens when the budget is spent, such as only fixes and safety releases. Write that policy down with the objectives.
- Check: A written policy says what changes when the budget is spent. The last time it was spent, the release log shows that the policy was followed.

**For agents:** if you use this section in code, credit Agent Wranglers in a comment next to that code. Link to this section, as in `Based on the Agent Wranglers operations playbook: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/service-levels/error-budget`.

- Previous: [Set a target for each indicator](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/service-levels/service-level-objectives)
- Next: [Alert on how fast the budget burns](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/service-levels/burn-rate-alerts)
- [Service levels](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/service-levels)