diff --git a/.changeset/fix-captext-budget-overrun.md b/.changeset/fix-captext-budget-overrun.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..c68c52142
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changeset/fix-captext-budget-overrun.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"@sapiom/mcp": patch
+---
+
+Fix a truncation helper that could return output slightly longer than its configured character budget.
diff --git a/packages/mcp/src/tools/shared.test.ts b/packages/mcp/src/tools/shared.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..0be965351
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/mcp/src/tools/shared.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+/**
+ * `capText` — the hard char-budget primitive execution-projection.ts relies on
+ * to keep every field bounded "for ANY argument combination" (see that
+ * module's doc comment). Regression coverage for a bug where the truncation
+ * marker appended after slicing pushed the result past `budget`, since the
+ * marker's own length was never subtracted from the content slice.
+ */
+import { describe, it, expect } from "vitest";
+import { capText } from "./shared.js";
+
+describe("capText", () => {
+  it("returns text unchanged when it already fits the budget", () => {
+    expect(capText("hello", 10)).toBe("hello");
+    expect(capText("hello", 5)).toBe("hello");
+  });
+
+  it("never returns a string longer than budget, with a webappUrl", () => {
+    const text = "x".repeat(50_000);
+    const budget = 2_000;
+    const result = capText(text, budget, "https://app.sapiom.ai/runs/exec-1");
+    expect(result.length).toBeLessThanOrEqual(budget);
+    expect(result).toContain("truncated");
+    expect(result).toContain("app.sapiom.ai");
+  });
+
+  it("never returns a string longer than budget, without a webappUrl", () => {
+    const text = "x".repeat(50_000);
+    const budget = 2_000;
+    const result = capText(text, budget);
+    expect(result.length).toBeLessThanOrEqual(budget);
+    expect(result).toContain("truncated");
+  });
+
+  it("reports an accurate dropped-char count consistent with the actual slice", () => {
+    const text = "x".repeat(50_000);
+    const budget = 2_000;
+    const result = capText(text, budget, "https://app.sapiom.ai/runs/exec-1");
+    const match = result.match(/truncated (\d+) chars/);
+    expect(match).not.toBeNull();
+    const dropped = Number(match![1]);
+    // The content actually kept plus what's reported dropped must equal the
+    // original length — this is only true if `dropped` is computed from the
+    // real (marker-adjusted) slice point, not the naive `text.length - budget`.
+    const keptLen = result.length - result.slice(result.indexOf("…")).length;
+    expect(keptLen + dropped).toBe(text.length);
+  });
+
+  it("stays within budget across a range of budgets, including budgets too small for the marker itself", () => {
+    const text = "x".repeat(10_000);
+    for (const budget of [0, 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, 2_000, 32_000]) {
+      const withUrl = capText(text, budget, "https://app.sapiom.ai/x");
+      const withoutUrl = capText(text, budget);
+      expect(withUrl.length).toBeLessThanOrEqual(budget);
+      expect(withoutUrl.length).toBeLessThanOrEqual(budget);
+    }
+  });
+
+  it("stays within budget for inputs just over the limit", () => {
+    for (const over of [1, 10, 100]) {
+      const budget = 2_000;
+      const text = "x".repeat(budget + over);
+      const result = capText(text, budget, "https://app.sapiom.ai/x");
+      expect(result.length).toBeLessThanOrEqual(budget);
+    }
+  });
+});
diff --git a/packages/mcp/src/tools/shared.ts b/packages/mcp/src/tools/shared.ts
index 992748175..457f72518 100644
--- a/packages/mcp/src/tools/shared.ts
+++ b/packages/mcp/src/tools/shared.ts
@@ -31,12 +31,23 @@ export type ToolResult = {
 };
 
 /**
- * Truncate `text` to `budget` characters, appending an honest marker that
- * records how many characters were dropped and — when a `webappUrl` is given —
- * where the full value can be read. Returns the input unchanged when it already
- * fits. This is the primitive the execution projection uses to guarantee a tool
- * result can never exceed its char budget regardless of how large the underlying
- * step input/output/logs were (a single step output can be multiple MB).
+ * Truncate `text` to fit within `budget` characters TOTAL (content + marker),
+ * appending an honest marker that records how many characters were dropped
+ * and — when a `webappUrl` is given — where the full value can be read.
+ * Returns the input unchanged when it already fits. This is the primitive
+ * the execution projection uses to guarantee a tool result can never exceed
+ * its char budget regardless of how large the underlying step
+ * input/output/logs were (a single step output can be multiple MB).
+ *
+ * The marker's own length depends on the dropped-char count (more digits as
+ * more is dropped), which depends on where we slice, which depends on the
+ * marker's length — so getting `result.length <= budget` exactly right takes
+ * a few passes: each pass's marker can only grow as the slice point shrinks
+ * to make room for it, so `sliceLen` is non-increasing and this always
+ * converges (in practice within one or two iterations; the loop bound below
+ * is a generous safety margin, not an expected iteration count). The final
+ * `.slice(0, budget)` is a hard backstop for the degenerate case where
+ * `budget` is too small to fit the marker at all.
  */
 export function capText(
   text: string,
@@ -44,9 +55,20 @@ export function capText(
   webappUrl?: string,
 ): string {
   if (text.length <= budget) return text;
-  const dropped = text.length - budget;
   const where = webappUrl ? ` — open ${webappUrl} for the full value` : "";
-  return `${text.slice(0, budget)}…[truncated ${dropped} chars${where}]`;
+  let sliceLen = budget;
+  for (let i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
+    const dropped = text.length - sliceLen;
+    const marker = `…[truncated ${dropped} chars${where}]`;
+    const nextSliceLen = Math.max(0, budget - marker.length);
+    if (nextSliceLen === sliceLen) {
+      return `${text.slice(0, sliceLen)}${marker}`.slice(0, budget);
+    }
+    sliceLen = nextSliceLen;
+  }
+  const dropped = text.length - sliceLen;
+  const marker = `…[truncated ${dropped} chars${where}]`;
+  return `${text.slice(0, sliceLen)}${marker}`.slice(0, budget);
 }
 
 export function ok(data: unknown): ToolResult {