Agent cannot spend

An agent has no ability to spend at all — usually because no authority was granted, or it was removed.

#Symptom

An agent's key produces refusals for every spend attempt, regardless of amount or recipient.

#Most likely cause: no spending authority was ever granted

An agent with no configured policy on a vault has zero spending ability — this is the default, not a bug. Authority is always something the owner explicitly grants; see Give an AI agent spending authority. Confirm with the vault owner that this agent's key was actually added to the vault's policy, and that the operation confirmed on-chain.

#The agent's key was rotated out

If the agent was previously able to spend and has since lost the ability entirely, check whether the owner rotated this agent's key to a new one. Rotation permanently and immediately removes the old key's authority — this is enforced by the covenant, not a setting that can be toggled back without another owner-signed operation.

#The vault is paused

A paused vault refuses all ordinary agent spends, regardless of any individual agent's configured policy, until the owner unpauses it.

#The vault reached a terminal state

If recovery has been performed, the vault's covenant lifecycle has ended — no agent authority survives that, because there is no longer a live covenant state to spend against.

#The agent is on the wrong network or using the wrong key

Confirm the agent's automation or wallet is using the exact key that was actually granted authority, and is targeting the correct network for this deployment — see Supported networks.

#How to confirm which of these applies

Use simulation — its structured refusal reason will typically distinguish "no authority configured" from "vault paused" from "wrong network," rather than leaving you to guess.

See also: Agent/Delegate, Spending authority.