ReasoningBomb crafts short prompts that trigger pathological reasoning chains (286.7× amplification), ballooning API costs from $0.00128 to $0.579 per call—bypass rate limits entirely because they cap requests, not costs.
Summary
Any agent processing external content through metered reasoning APIs (RAG pipelines, web scrapers, ticketing systems) is exposed to silent cost amplification without hitting rate limits. Spending alerts fire post-incident. The only effective defense runs before the API call.
Why it matters
Any agent processing external content through metered reasoning APIs (RAG pipelines, web scrapers, ticketing systems) is exposed to silent cost amplification without hitting rate limits. Spending alerts fire post-incident. The only effective defense runs before the API call.
Implementation verdict
Replaces reactive spending alerts with pre-call cost ceilings. Requires: (1) set max_completion_tokens on every reasoning model call—static ceiling for individual tasks, (2) dynamic budget-aware ceiling for sessions. No infrastructure changes. Ready now; github.com/salimassili62-afk/ai-costguard demonstrates the pattern. Cost: one parameter per call.
Sources
Dev Signal
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