Mandates

A mandate lets an account give one address, such as an agent's own wallet, a bounded authority over its margin positions until a time. It is the alternative to a full authorization, which lets an address do everything the account can do. The account sets a mandate with setMandate on MarginAccounts, which the MCP server prepares as accounts_set_mandate, and an agent checks where it stands with accounts_mandate before it borrows.

Mandate or authorization#

An address the account also authorized in full is not bound by a mandate. Give an agent a mandate, not an authorization.

Give a mandate#

The account itself signs. With the MCP server, call accounts_set_mandate:

For example, an agent that may carry up to 500 USDG of debt at up to 2x for a day:

{
  "agent": "0xAgentAddressInMixedCaseChecksumForm",
  "expiresAt": 1893456000,
  "maxDebt": "500000000",
  "maxLeverage": 20000
}

The result names the signer, which is the account, lists one call to setMandate, and carries limits, a sentence saying what the signed call lets the agent do. Show that sentence to the owner. The owner signs and sends the call; the server and the agent do not.

The same call from the TypeScript SDK, with viem, is accounts.setMandate(deployments, { agent, expiresAt, maxDebt, maxLeverage }), where expiresAt and maxDebt are bigint and maxLeverage is a number. It returns the address, abi, functionName and args of the call.

setMandate reverts with InvalidMandate when expiresAt is not in the future or maxLeverage is below 10,000. A new mandate for the same agent replaces the old one. MandateSet(account, agent, expiresAt, maxDebt, maxLeverage) is emitted; an expiresAt of 0 emits it with zeros.

Borrow within a mandate#

Before preparing a borrow or a withdrawal for the account, the agent calls accounts_mandate with the account, its own address as agent, and the position: CROSS, the default, or an asset's symbol.

Each result also names the block it was read at. reason is computed in this order: no mandate, expired, debt at the limit, leverage at or above the limit. The SDK's accounts.mandateStatus and the contract's mandateStatus(account, agent, position) return the same reason and debtRoom.

A position inside its mandate can still be unsafe, because the limits are the account's and the position is still margined against the band. Before a borrow, call accounts_liquidation_price with the amount as borrowing, and tell the owner the price. Then prepare accounts_borrow with the account as receiver. The agent's wallet signs that call.

What a mandate allows and what reverts#

Until expiresAt, an agent under a mandate may deposit Stock Tokens, USDG and baskets' shares, repay with the position's own USDG (repayWithCollateral), and lend and unlend, as an authorized address may. It may borrow and withdraw under three conditions, checked after the call's own requirement check:

• the receiver is the account;
• the position's debt after the call is at most maxDebt;
• the position's leverage after the call is at most maxLeverage.

A position without equity counts as infinite leverage. Prices that move an agent over a limit stop its borrowing and withdrawing and leave it free to deposit and repay.

Every other requirement of the account still applies: the position must meet its requirement at the band's low edge, borrowing stops while an asset is halted or recovering, and the weekend cap holds. A mandate sits on top of those rules and removes nothing from them.

The Tapehouse app says the same in words. A MandateDebtLimit reads as borrowing that much would take the position's debt over what its mandate allows, and a MandateReceiver as a loan or withdrawal that may go only to the account that gave the mandate.

Next#

• The MCP server
• The Claude Code plugin, whose tapehouse-mandate skill walks an agent through this
• Margin accounts
• Borrow