Recover a vault

Perform a terminal, owner-signed withdrawal of a vault's funds, independent of any hosted workflow.

#When to use this

Use recovery when you want to withdraw a vault's funds entirely and end its covenant lifecycle — after confirming a genuine agent-key compromise, when retiring a vault, or any time you want funds fully back under a single unconstrained owner key rather than under a delegated policy. Recovery is terminal; if you only need a temporary stop, use pause instead.

#Requirements

Recovery requires only the vault owner's own wallet signature. It does not require the hosted PolicyVault platform to be available, does not require any agent's cooperation, and does not require approver signatures or a governance ceremony — this is intentional; see Owner recovery for why it is designed this way.

#Steps

1. From the vault's page, choose Recover (sometimes labeled "Close Vault & Withdraw"). Only the connected owner wallet can initiate this.
2. Confirm the destination for recovered funds (typically the owner's own wallet).
3. Review carefully — this operation is terminal for this vault. PolicyVault builds the exact unsigned recovery transaction and, as with any spend, independently verifies it in the browser before presenting a signature request.
4. Sign in your wallet.
5. PolicyVault submits the transaction and waits for confirmed chain proof before marking the vault closed — not merely "submitted."

#After recovery

The vault reaches a terminal, closed state. It remains visible in your history for audit purposes but is no longer available for further covenant operations. Any agent keys or approvers that were configured on it lose all authority, since the vault itself no longer has a live covenant state to spend against.

#If you are unsure whether recovery is necessary

If the concern is a specific agent's key rather than the whole vault, consider rotating that agent's key first — it is less drastic and does not close the vault. Recovery is the right tool when you want to be certain nothing further can be spent from this vault under any prior policy.

See also: Owner recovery, Recovery questions.