How to Change Provider When Quota Runs Out

How to Change Provider When Quota Runs Out

When a provider runs out of quota, the first thing to know is what AxiOwl does and does not control. AxiOwl does not refill a provider account, bypass provider limits, or silently move a message to a different AI service. Its current implementation routes a message to a named provider session from the local registry. To change providers, you choose a different target session, discover or register that session if needed, and send the next message there.

That distinction matters in real operations. A quota or auth failure belongs to the provider surface. AxiOwl can preserve the message path, record evidence, and make another provider session addressable, but the switch is an explicit operator or agent choice. There is no automatic provider failover path in the source inspected for this draft.

Sources read

Provider Choice Is Target Choice

In AxiOwl, the normal send command is addressed to a target chat or agent name:

axiowl send --to "Target chat name" --body "Message text" --from "Operator"

The provider is not chosen by a global "current provider" setting in that send command. AxiOwl resolves "Target chat name" through its registry. The registry row contains the target display name, aliases, provider, provider session id, node id, and sendable state. Once the target row is resolved, the message pipeline passes the request to provider_edges.cpp, which dispatches to the provider-specific delivery module for that row.

That means changing providers is usually as simple as changing the target:

axiowl send --to "Planning Thread - Codex" --body "Summarize this plan." --from "Operator"

axiowl send --to "Planning Thread - Cursor" --body "Summarize this plan." --from "Operator"

Those two commands may look nearly identical, but AxiOwl treats them differently if the registry rows point to different providers. The target name is the routing decision.

Confirm What Is Sendable

Before rerouting work, list the sendable local targets:

axiowl list agents

The implementation prints only enabled, sendable rows and includes the provider and node:

Planning Thread - Codex | provider=codex | node=local
Planning Thread - Cursor | provider=cursor | node=local

Use that output to choose the next viable provider session. If your Codex account is out of quota, choose a sendable Cursor, VS Code, Copilot-in-VS-Code, Antigravity, or other supported target that is actually present in your registry and install.

The support matrix is important here. In the current docs, supported surfaces include Codex agents, Codex CLI, VS Code agents, the Copilot VS Code extension surface, Cursor agents, and Antigravity agents. Several CLI providers are listed as target surfaces rather than fully supported surfaces because their current bar still depends on provider-owned metadata, auth, or patch proof. A provider is not supported just because AxiOwl can start a process or write a config file.

Discover Another Provider Session

If the provider you want does not appear in axiowl list agents, run discovery for that provider or for all local providers:

axiowl discover all

Or target one surface:

axiowl discover codex-cli
axiowl discover vscode-native
axiowl discover cursor
axiowl discover antigravity

Discovery is provider-specific. It can add newly found sessions, refresh last-seen fields, enrich manual rows, and repair a missing target once during send. It is also deliberately conservative: discovery should not hide provider delivery failures or silently promote weak evidence into a sendable row.

That is the right behavior when quota is involved. If a provider is unavailable, out of quota, unauthenticated, or missing a required session identity, AxiOwl should not pretend the route worked. It should leave evidence and let you choose another known target.

Create Or Register A Backup Target

For provider surfaces with create support, AxiOwl exposes an explicit create command:

axiowl create --provider codex-cli --name "Backup Codex CLI Thread" --body "Start a backup work thread." --from "Operator"

The CLI help shows create support is provider-scoped:

axiowl create --provider <provider> --name <agent> [--body <message> | --stdin]

For a known existing session, the registry can also be populated manually:

axiowl registry add-agent --name "Backup Provider Thread" --provider codex_cli --session "codex_cli:session:SESSION_ID"

Manual registration should be used carefully. The session id needs to be a real provider-owned session id, not a guess. The registry model is durable local state, and the developer docs explicitly warn not to let stale names or stale paths become stronger than provider-owned session ids.

What The Receipt Means

When the CLI accepts a message, the receipt is intentionally narrow:

AxiOwl handoff receipt: MCP/CLI request accepted by AxiOwl.
Delivery state: accepted_by_axiowl
Receipt boundary: provider delivery, provider wake-up, and provider reply are not implied.

That is not a provider success guarantee. The source and tests make this boundary explicit: the send receipt can be accepted_by_axiowl while accepted_by_provider is still false because provider delivery runs after target resolution and background handoff. Provider success, provider rejection, auth failure, quota failure, or timeout belongs in delivery evidence and provider result logs.

So when quota runs out, do not treat the first handoff receipt as proof that the provider processed the message. Check the delivery log path printed by the command, then reroute the next message to another sendable target if the provider failed.

No Hidden Remote Fallback

The remote provider docs are also explicit: remote delivery is unsupported for local-provider remediation builds and should not be used as fallback to hide local provider failures. That matters for quota handling. A hidden remote route would make a quota problem harder to diagnose because the original provider failure would be masked.

AxiOwl's safer pattern is visible rerouting:

  1. Let the failing provider route fail loudly.
  2. Inspect the delivery evidence.
  3. Pick a different sendable target from axiowl list agents.
  4. Send the same work to the new target.
  5. Wait for an MCP reply with correct sender identity when end-to-end proof matters.

Practical Provider Switch Workflow

Here is the short operator workflow:

axiowl list agents

Pick a target on a different provider:

axiowl send --to "Backup Cursor Agent" --body "Continue this task from the previous handoff." --from "Operator"

For longer handoffs, use stdin:

Get-Content .\handoff.txt -Raw | axiowl send --to "Backup Cursor Agent" --stdin --from "Operator"

If no backup target exists yet:

axiowl discover all
axiowl list agents

Then send to the newly discovered provider session. If discovery finds evidence but no sendable target, fix the provider app, auth, version, MCP integration, or registry identity instead of forcing a weak route.

Closing

Changing provider in AxiOwl is not a magic retry button. It is an address book operation backed by provider-specific delivery edges. When quota runs out, the reliable move is to choose another real, sendable target whose registry row points at a different provider session. That keeps the failure visible, preserves evidence, and avoids pretending that one provider's quota problem can be solved by silent failover.

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