Require approvals

Configure an approval threshold so spends above a chosen amount need additional external-approver signatures.

#When to use this

Use an approval threshold when you want day-to-day spending to proceed on an agent's own authority, but want a second, independent signature required for larger or more sensitive transactions — without involving the owner personally for every one of them.

#Steps

1. Make sure the vault has at least one external approver configured. A threshold with no approvers cannot be satisfied, so PolicyVault should be configured with real approvers before (or at the same time as) setting a meaningful threshold.
2. From the vault's (or agent's) policy configuration, set the approval threshold amount and the M-of-N requirement — how many of the configured approvers must sign for a qualifying spend.
3. Review and sign. This is an owner-signed covenant operation.

#What changes once this is set

Any agent spend at or below the threshold proceeds exactly as before, subject to its other limits. Any spend above the threshold now enters a pending-approval state after being requested: it waits for the required number of valid approver signatures over the exact frozen transaction before it can be submitted at all. See Approval states for the exact states a request moves through.

#Testing it

Use simulation to confirm a spend above your chosen threshold is correctly reported as requiring approvals (wouldRequire) before it is actually built — this lets you verify the threshold behaves as intended without spending any real funds or consuming an approver's signature unnecessarily.

#Removing or loosening a requirement

Raising, lowering, or removing the threshold is also an owner-signed covenant operation. There is no way for an agent or approver to loosen their own requirement.

See also: External approver, Approval threshold.