Quickstart
Cycles provides runtime budget authority for autonomous agents. At the boundaries you instrument, it reserves spend or caller-assigned action exposure before an LLM call, tool, or side effect. Your application still classifies and authorizes the action and must route every protected path through the boundary. This section takes you from zero to a working integration.
New to Cycles?
Start with What is Cycles? for a short orientation, then run through the end-to-end tutorial to see the reserve-commit lifecycle in practice.
Add Cycles to an existing application
| Stack | Guide |
|---|---|
| Python | Python client |
| TypeScript | TypeScript client |
| Rust | Rust client |
| Java / Spring Boot | Spring Boot starter |
| MCP host (Claude, Cursor, Windsurf) | MCP server quickstart |
Use an AI coding assistant to integrate
Add Cycles with Claude or Codex — Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, etc. can wire Cycles into an existing app from natural-language instructions.
Deploy self-hosted Cycles
Cycles is Apache 2.0 and self-hosted — there is no managed cloud. Run it on your own infrastructure.
- Architecture overview — how the runtime server, admin API, dashboard, and events service fit together.
- Deploy the full stack — server + admin + dashboard + events.
- Self-host the runtime server — the protocol-conforming server alone.
- Deploy the events service — webhook delivery and signed audit events.
- Deploy the admin dashboard — UI for tenants, budgets, and audit.
Connect AI tools via MCP
Claude Desktop · Claude Code · Cursor · Windsurf · MCP server over HTTP
Plan your rollout
- Add hard budget limits to Spring AI — the reservation pattern walked through end-to-end.
- Choose a first rollout — tenant budgets, run budgets, or model-call guardrails as a starting point.
Next
- How-To Guides — recipes for integrations, budget patterns, operations, and troubleshooting.
- Cycles Protocol — the open specification for runtime budget authority.
- Why Cycles — the case for runtime authority over autonomous systems.