Idle Burn
When your AI tool spends credits while you're not using it. Background agent loops, autonomous workflows, and skills-based execution all run silently — and they meter against your wallet whether you're sleeping or not.
This isn't a rate-limit complaint and it isn't a price-change complaint. It's a background-agent meteringcomplaint, and it's about to hit Cursor 3, Claude Code Skills, and every Devin-clone running autonomous loops. We're cataloging it now so you have receipts when your team's $48 vanishes overnight on 0 prompts.
Reported incidents (4)
- ·OpenAI Codexvia OpenAI Community forum$50-100 / sleeping user
User reports purchasing 1000 credits — gone in under an hour without active heavy usage. Background agent loops continued metering during idle.
↗ Original report - ·OpenAI Codexvia OpenAI Community forum$30-80
850 credits + 5-hour limit consumed on only 8 user-initiated queries. Implies massive background agent activity not transparently metered.
↗ Original report - ·OpenAI Codexvia OpenAI Community forumvaries
Credits draining while idle / not actively used. Multiple users report waking up to drained accounts.
↗ Original report - ·OpenAI Codexvia OpenAI Community forum
Multiple reports of unwarranted billings — Codex consuming credits and charging undue payments without transparent metering.
↗ Original report
Why this matters now
Every major coding agent has shipped or is shipping background-loop autonomy in 2026: Cursor 3 agents, Claude Code skills, Replit autonomous workflows, Codex 24/7 loops, Devin-clones. The metering models for these are universally opaque. Idle burn is going to be the breakout AI scandal of late 2026.
We're seeding this category so the receipts exist when finance teams start asking.
Got an idle burn story?
Email idleburn@gotnerfed.com or open a GitHub issue with timestamps + screenshots. We catalog every verifiable case.
How to detect idle burn
- Snapshot your credit balance before bed / before a long meeting / before any 4+ hour idle period.
- Snapshot again after. Any non-zero delta with no user prompts in between is idle burn.
- Check vendor billing logs for activity timestamps — note the gap between “your last input” and “billed activity.”
- If the gap exists and the cost is >$5, screenshot everything and submit it here.