How Limits Work

Limits are the core feature of ClaGuard. Each limit defines a budget — in USD or raw tokens — over a specific time window (daily or monthly), with one or more thresholds that trigger notifications.

Creating a Limit

Open the Limits tab in the dashboard and click Add Limit.

Field	Description
Name	A human-readable label, e.g. "Daily spending"
Type	cost (USD) or tokens (raw token count)
Window	daily (resets at midnight) or monthly (resets on the 1st)
Cap	The maximum value — e.g. 5.00 for $5 or 100000 for 100k tokens
Thresholds	Percentage values at which to send a notification

Threshold Examples

A limit with cap $10.00 and thresholds [50, 80, 100] sends:

• A warning at $5.00 (50%)
• An alert at $8.00 (80%)
• A critical notification at $10.00 (100%)

You can add as many thresholds as you want or as few as one.

How Usage is Measured

ClaGuard scrapes usage data directly from claude.ai. Each sync captures:

• Input tokens used
• Output tokens used
• Cost computed by Claude (in USD)
• For Team plans: session and weekly limit utilization

Usage is aggregated into daily and monthly windows and stored locally in a SQLite database in your app data folder.

Window Reset

Window	Resets
daily	Midnight in your local timezone
monthly	00:00 on the 1st of each month

Notifications

When a threshold is crossed, ClaGuard fires a native desktop notification. The notification includes:

• The limit name
• The threshold that was hit
• Your current usage vs. the cap

Notifications are fired once per threshold per window period. If you restart the app or the window resets, thresholds reset too.

Editing and Deleting Limits

Click the ⋯ menu on any limit card to edit or delete it. Deletions are permanent and remove the limit's threshold history.

Tips

• Start with a generous daily cost limit (e.g. $20) to catch unexpected spikes.
• Add a separate monthly limit as a hard budget ceiling.
• Use token limits if you're on a subscription plan where cost isn't the primary concern.