Scoped approval
Agent Pay status: Approve does not execute. Execution: not enabled. ACH settlement: not enabled. prepare_payment never moves money. Machine-readable: /docs/agents/status.json.
Every human approval creates a spend envelope: a record of what the approval covers. Decisions about it are written to a separate approval ledger.
Limits today
Both features are Live (limited). Read these before relying on them:
- Approval still starts from a draft. A human approves one payment draft, and the spend envelope and ledger entry are recorded alongside that approval. There is no standalone "approve a budget" flow.
- Aggregate caps are in progress. An envelope can carry
maxPaymentsandmaxTotalCents, but usage across multiple payments is not persisted yet. Per-payment and allow-list checks apply. - Scope can't be set from the approval screen yet. Approvals use the defaults in the table below.
- Approve does not execute. An envelope never moves money on its own, and execution is not enabled.
Spend envelope
Minted in the same transaction as the human approval. If it can't be saved, the approval fails rather than being recorded without it. It holds:
- The signed fields: amount, currency, payee, funding source, rail, idempotency key, and
executableUntil. - Who is involved: the principal (account owner), the agent, and the approver.
- The signature, cleared on revocation.
Envelope statuses: approved, revoked, expired, denied.
Approval ledger
An append-only record of envelope decisions, separate from general agent activity. Each entry is one of approved, revoked, expired, or denied.
Approval scope
| Field | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Principal, amount, currency, payee, expiry | From the approved draft | Locked by the signature |
allowedCounterparties | Empty | Empty means the locked payee only |
maxPayments, maxTotalCents | Unset | Aggregate caps (see limits above) |
unattendedAllowed | false | Automated, unattended use is refused |
requiresInteractiveSession | true | Use must come from a signed-in human session |
Scope checks fail closed. Any automated reuse of an interactive, one-time approval is refused.
Related
- Authorization envelope
- Recurring mandates, which need a fresh envelope every cycle
- Statuses