# Metering, budgets, service credit and ledgers

Reserve first, then execute, and keep real consumption apart from what users are billed; cash, service credit, entitlements, resource usage and contribution are five kinds of record, each managed in its own units and rights, and reconciliation finds what does not match.

> Document ID: MYRILUM-DOC-ARCH-023
> Document type: concept
> Product: NOT_APPLICABLE
> Version: 0.1.0
> Region: GLOBAL
> Visibility: PUBLIC
> Publication: PUBLISHED_GLOBAL
> Content maturity: DRAFTED
> Governance: APPROVED
> Capability state: IN_DEVELOPMENT
> Availability: NOT_AVAILABLE
> Authorization: PUBLIC_INFORMATION
> Freshness: CURRENT
> Safety class: INFORMATIONAL
> Owner: Web3Capital Documentation Steward
> Approvers (assignment only; not approval evidence): Stephen
> Canonical authority: SRC-ARCHITECTURE-ATLAS-V2-2
> Source commit: 6b41cce4496de03c67a501aa94cd41ec6ac0e85a
> Content digest: 2ad8835626be2f5fa1f0af96d227da2e6d0b23b0ab4888589f60e1fbb1fc2af0
> Effective: NOT_SET
> Expires: NOT_SET
> Last verified: 2026-09-23
> Review due: 2026-10-23
> Command authority: NONE
> Canonical URL: /en/architecture/metering-and-ledgers

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## What this map shows

![Metering, budgets, service credit and ledgers diagram (A23)](/figures/atlas-v2-2/A23.png)

*MYRILUM architecture map v2.2 · A23 (public edition). Labels are in Chinese; every element is listed in English below. Select the diagram to open it at full size.*

This is MYRILUM's target architecture. It does not mean everything on the map is live; whether a capability can be used today is stated in “Current availability”.

Reserve before executing, and keep real consumption apart from user billing; five kinds of record are managed with different units and rights.

Usage records real consumption; the contract decides the fee; the ledger records change; reconciliation finds inconsistencies.

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## Budgets and holding credit

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Approved budget or entitlement | Task ceiling, product policy and available licences |
| Atomic reservation | Safe under concurrency; bound to a business action and a unit |
| Calls and in-flight holds | Keeps the necessary reservation while an external operation is unconfirmed |
| Reconcile and release | Settles actual consumption; releases only what is confirmed unused |

> **Available credit** — Valid credits − consumed − unreleased reservations. Different currencies or units are never added together.

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## Turning raw usage into fees

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Usage event | Quantity, unit, request identifier and time of occurrence |
| De-duplication and validation | The same event is never billed twice; late reports are traceable |
| Rating against a price snapshot | By contract, model or tool version and pricing unit |
| Entries and corrections | Old entries are never overwritten; errors are fixed through explicit correcting records |

> **The budget invariant** — Billable consumption so far + in-flight reservations ≤ the approved ceiling; how far this can be guaranteed depends on the external maximum-consumption bound.

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## The five kinds of record, one by one

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| 1 Cash, receivables and payables | Recorded by entity and currency, linked to external evidence of funds |
| 2 Service credit | Credits, grants, reservations, consumption, expiry and restoration |
| 3 Entitlements | Seats, features, service counts and licence periods |
| 4 Resource usage | Raw consumption such as model volume, image count and processing time |

> **Unknown is not zero** — A call that timed out may already have incurred cost; the provider's result is checked first, then the deduction or release is decided.

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## Contribution and cross-record reconciliation

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| 5 Contribution record | Actions, evidence, attribution, confirmation and correction; independent of funds |
| Multi-party reconciliation | Usage, prices, user bills, provider bills and the general ledger |
| Discrepancy queue | Duplicates, gaps, unknowns, overruns and unit mismatches |
| Traceable closure | Every discrepancy has an explanation and an owner; the original record is kept after correction |

> **Balanced is not true** — Balanced entries prove only that the books are structurally consistent, not that sources are real, services were delivered or the business is compliant.

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## Source

This page follows A23 of the MYRILUM architecture map v2.2 (public edition: restricted products and internal open items are left out). Related: “Commerce and the five ledgers”; “Agent runtime and failure recovery”; “Orders, payments, settlement and disputes”.

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This document is read-only, grants no command authority, and does not authorize deployment, payment, provider modification, or any other real-world action.