Agentic RAG Needs a Search Budget: Stop Letting Retrieval Loop Forever

Agentic RAG systems can loop through searches indefinitely because they lack clear stopping rules, wasting time and money. The solution is a multi-dimensional search budget covering queries, sources, tokens, time, and cost, combined with a claim-based evidence ledger that tracks what is proven, contradicted, or unknown. Retrieval stops when evidence is sufficient or a budget limit is hit, and every stop must have an explicit reason code.