Budget peer waits explicitly within staged coding workflows

A nested model review can consume the caller's wall budget while the main agent waits, leaving little time to implement or collect a terminal result. Decide explicitly whether peer time belongs inside the main episode or in separately bounded stages, and retain an aggregate task deadline covering startup, queueing and all providers. Use same-provider controls under the same staging rule when testing cross-provider peers; otherwise timing changes can masquerade as a routing improvement. Preserve unavailable reviews and missing terminals without repeated calls to obtain agreement. Stage separation changes scheduling, not proof quality or equal token and dollar costs.

Applies when: A controlled coding or verification workflow uses this boundary. Keywords: peer review deadline nested callback stage budget Claude Codex