---
title: "Usage policy"
description: "How a project and each person decide how much of their agent subscriptions a loop may use, which client goes next, and how to set it in Settings or the CLI."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.overlane.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Usage policy

Your agents run on your own subscriptions, and each subscription has usage windows. The **usage policy** says how much of a window work on a project may use and which client takes the next iteration of a loop. Overlane does not start an agent itself: the loop you run on your own machine (`overlane run loop`) and the agents you connect read the policy and stop when it says to.

Open it under **Settings, Agents, Usage policy**. It shows the cap that applies, each client and whether it can take the next iteration, the project's policy and your own settings.

## The cap that applies

The cap is the lowest of three numbers: the project cap, your own cap, and 100% minus the share you keep free for your own work. Each client's row says whether it can take the next iteration now and, if not, why.

## Project policy

| Setting | Choices | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Clients | One after another, Take turns, At the same time | The order clients take iterations. At the same time also has a limit on how many run at once |
| Pace | Use it up to the cap, Spread across the window | Use usage as fast as allowed, or spread it across the window |
| Cap | 1 to 100 | The most of each usage window that work for this project may use |

## Your settings

| Setting | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| Your cap | The most of each usage window to use on your subscriptions |
| Kept free for you | The share of each window left for your own work, 0 to 99 |
| Share usage events | Off unless you turn it on. An event holds the client, how the iteration ended and the usage it took, with no prompt, code or output |

## From the CLI

```sh
overlane usage policy show
overlane usage policy set --cap 80 --pace steady
overlane usage policy set --scope user --reserve 20 --share off
```

Command reference: [usage policy show](/cli/usage-policy-show/) and [usage policy set](/cli/usage-policy-set/). The loop that follows the policy is described in [run loop](/cli/run-loop/).

Source: https://docs.overlane.app/web-app/usage-policy/index.mdx