A green CI run is not a verdict. It is a photograph taken at one moment, under one seed, with one set of fixtures. When the photographer is an agent that rewrites five files in a single pass, you need more than a photograph — you need a budget.
This article shows how to define a regression budget for agent-generated patches: a fixed number of properties, fixture contracts, and flaky-test quarantine slots that the patch must respect before it merges. I use free model access and a free server tier to keep the gate honest, but the budgeting idea works with any CI.
Disclosure: This article was prepared as part of MonkeyCode's product outreach.
Why a budget beats a checklist
A checklist says: run property P, run fixture F, mark flaky test T. A budget says: here is how much verification you can afford, here is what must pass, and here is what gets cut when time runs out.
