Vault states

The exact statuses a vault can hold, and the dashboard's derived operational status shown on top of them.

A vault has an underlying covenant-lifecycle status, and the dashboard additionally derives a friendlier operational status from that status plus any in-flight request/claim. Both are fail-closed: an unrecognized or unverifiable state is reported honestly, never guessed.

Vault status (lifecycle)

StatusMeaning
PENDING_CREATEA creation request has been built/signed but chain proof for the genesis transaction is not yet confirmed.
ACTIVEThe vault is live: it has a confirmed on-chain state and can accept further covenant operations (spends, top-ups, policy changes, pause), subject to its policy.
PAUSEDThe owner has paused the vault. The covenant refuses ordinary agent spends until the owner unpauses. See Pause/revoke.
RECOVEREDTerminal. The owner performed recovery; the vault's covenant lifecycle has ended. See Owner recovery.
TERMINATED_UNKNOWNTerminal, fail-closed. PolicyVault could not positively verify the vault's exact current state on-chain. This is not the same as "recovered" — it means verification was inconclusive, and is reported honestly rather than guessed at.

RECOVERED and TERMINATED_UNKNOWN are both terminal: no further covenant operations proceed from either.

Operational status (dashboard-derived)

Computed purely from durable backend truth (the vault's manifest, any held transition claim, and request records) — never from chain access directly, and never mutated by any input:

Operational statusMeaning
ACTIVELive vault, no held claim, no in-flight request.
WAITING_FOR_SIGNATUREA built request is bound to the vault's current state and awaiting a wallet signature.
TRANSACTION_PENDINGA transaction has been submitted and PolicyVault is waiting for chain confirmation — see Transaction pending.
ACTION_REQUIRED_VERIFYA claim is held with no live submission in flight; chain verification (reconciliation) needs to resolve it.
CLOSEDTerminal recovery has been proven on-chain.
UNKNOWNFail-closed: the vault's status is TERMINATED_UNKNOWN or otherwise unclassifiable. No mutation controls are offered in this state.

There is deliberately no status, and no user input, that deletes or overrides a held claim — resolution flows only through reconciliation's exact chain proofs, never a manual override.

See also: Vault, Request states.