Approval threshold

The point above which a spend requires additional external-approver signatures before the covenant accepts it.

An approval threshold is an amount above which an agent's spend requires additional signatures from external approvers before the covenant will accept the transaction — an M-of-N requirement (for example: any 2 of 3 configured approvers must sign) set by the owner.

#What it protects against

Approval thresholds add a second-signature requirement for larger or more sensitive spends, without requiring the owner personally to approve every transaction. An agent whose key is compromised, or an automated agent that misbehaves, is limited to spends at or below the threshold — anything larger needs independent human sign-off from an approver, who is cryptographically endorsing that exact transaction and cannot be tricked into approving a different one after the fact.

#Below the threshold

Spends at or below the threshold proceed on the agent's authority alone, subject to the other policy checks (per-transaction limit, periodic budget, allowlist).

#Above the threshold

The spend enters a pending-approval state and waits for the required number of approver signatures over the exact frozen transaction. Once enough valid approvals exist, the transaction can be submitted; the covenant independently re-checks that the signatures are genuine and sufficient before accepting it — approvals recorded by the hosted platform are not themselves authority, only the on-chain check is.

#Setting the threshold and the approver set

Both the threshold and the set of approvers are part of a vault's policy, set by the owner. Changing either is an owner-signed covenant operation.

See also: Require approvals, Approval states, External approver.