cost-governance-trace

Extend benchmark traces with cost, latency, ownership, approval, and intervention signals so quality decisions can be compared against operational cost. Use when CTO- or org-level routing policy needs more than pass/fail evidence.

Cost Governance Trace

Record cost in context, not in isolation.

Workflow

  1. Capture role-to-model and role-to-effort mappings.
  2. Record role-level token usage, elapsed time, and intervention signals.
  3. Record owner team, service criticality, approval state, and release state.
  4. Aggregate runs by task type, route, and team.
  5. Produce a report that compares quality and cost together.

Rules

  • Do not present low cost as success if quality degraded.
  • Missing role-level data should stay missing, not be fabricated.
  • Distinguish run cost from operator or human intervention cost.
  • Keep quality-first and cost-optimized routes directly comparable.

Output Contract

Mirror ../../docs/templates/TRACE_RECORD_TEMPLATE.json and ../../docs/templates/COST_GOVERNANCE_REPORT_TEMPLATE.md.

Failure Modes To Avoid

  • Cost-only optimization
  • Missing intervention accounting
  • Hiding governance overhead inside generic elapsed time