Example: two mandates

This page continues the Harbor & Line example. The charter is in place, and root authority now delegates.

Root authority issues Marisol a mandate

Root keys are for constituting the organization, and they stay out of daily work. On the same day, Ruth signs the company's first mandate. It delegates bounded purchasing authority to Marisol Vega, who runs logistics. Marisol is the person behind Petrel, the agent that buys bookkeeping in the Agent SoW example and posts the freight-audit RFP in the Agent RFP example. This document is what entitles her to do those things in Harbor & Line's name.

mnd_3f8c1n6z9v4b7q2m · v1 · in forcesigned by root authority, threshold 1

Organization: Harbor & Line Outfitters, under its charter
Issuer: Root authority
Holder: Marisol Vega, mari@harborandline.exampleAccountacct_2c9f7e1aKeyher public key, named here because she may sub-delegate
Powers: Form, amend, terminate and award
Ceilings: Up to 50,000,000 XCR per engagement, and at most 200,000,000 XCR a month
Scope: Offerings matching audit-freight-*, for logistics purchasing only
Payer: The organization. Engagements she approves settle from Harbor & Line’s balance
Sub-delegation: Allowed, one level deep
Term: From 1 August 2026 until 1 August 2027
Signed: By Ruth Calloway with a root key, on 1 August 2026

Ruth’s signature covers every line above, and one root signature meets the charter’s threshold. Issuance is evidence, because the signature is the record. The holder line names Marisol’s public key, which is required here because this mandate permits sub-delegation.

Each bound means one plain thing.

The powers say what kinds of act she may approve. The power to form covers countersigning an engagement into existence, the power to amend covers approving amendments, the power to terminate covers ending engagements, and the power to award covers awarding an RFP posting. That is why her September 9 award of Caldera's response in the Agent RFP example is in order.
The ceilings say how much. No single engagement she approves may carry a committed price above 50,000,000 XCR, and no more than 200,000,000 XCR of formed commitments may fall in any calendar month. Both are checked at approval time.
The scope says over what. It covers only engagements whose offerings match audit-freight-*, so she cannot buy bookkeeping under this document.
The term says until when. After one year the mandate has no force, and renewing it takes a fresh signature.
The settlement clause names the organization as payer. Engagements she approves settle from Harbor & Line's balance, and her ceilings bound her draw on it.
Sub-delegation says she may pass authority down, in narrower mandates and only one level deep.
Because she may sub-delegate, the holder key is required. This document will be the issuer of a signature that someone else has to check later, and an account name and an email address do not tell a verifier which key to check it against.

Marisol sub-delegates to Tom

Marisol does not approve every formation herself. On August 6 she issues a narrower mandate to Tom Okafor, a purchasing manager on her team. The issuer of this document is her own mandate.

mnd_6d2p9r4s7t1v8w3z · v1 · sub-mandatesigned by the holder of mnd_3f8c1n6z9v4b7q2m

Organization: Harbor & Line Outfitters, under its charter
Issuer: Marisol Vega’s mandate
Holder: Tom Okafor, tom@harborandline.exampleAccountacct_9b4d2f7cKeynone, because he may not sub-delegate
Powers: Form only
Ceilings: Up to 10,000,000 XCR per engagement, and at most 40,000,000 XCR a month
Scope: Offerings matching audit-freight-*, for logistics purchasing only
Payer: The organization
Sub-delegation: Not allowed
Term: From 6 August 2026 until 4 November 2026
Signed: By Marisol Vega with the key her own mandate names, on 6 August 2026 at 14:30 UTC

The issuer is a mandate. Marisol’s own key signs it. It is the same key that signed the RFP posting, and the same key her own mandate names as its holder key. That match is what a verifier checks: the signature on this document must be by the holder key of the mandate it names as issuer. The chain resolves from there, through her mandate to the charter’s root authority. Tom’s mandate carries no holder key, because it permits no sub-delegation and so will never be an issuer.

Before hosting the sub-mandate, the registry applied the narrowing rule: every dimension must be at most as broad as the issuer's mandate.

The powers are a subset: the power to form alone, out of her four.
The ceilings are lower: 10,000,000 per engagement and 40,000,000 per month, against her 50,000,000 and 200,000,000.
The scope is the same pattern and no wider.
The expiry, 90 days out on November 4, falls inside her August 2027.
The payer stays the organization. She may pass that down only because her own mandate names it, since nobody can grant a draw on a treasury they do not hold.
Her limit of one level of sub-delegation is spent by this document, so Tom's mandate allows no sub-delegation and he can pass nothing further down.

A registry refuses a sub-mandate that widens anything, and the refusal is enforced. Authority narrows going down.

The registry answers with the chain

the chainas the registry answers it

root authority   org_7k2m9q4w1x8e5r3t   two allocator keys, threshold 1
  └ mnd_3f8c1n6z9v4b7q2m   Marisol Vega   form, amend, terminate, award
       50M / 200M XCR   audit-freight-*   expires 2027-08-01
       holder key UBVGA3E6...ZJ7B4CDR   checks the signature below
      └ mnd_6d2p9r4s7t1v8w3z   Tom Okafor   form
           10M / 40M XCR   audit-freight-*   expires 2026-11-04

A chain is a mandate plus the mandates above it, up to root authority. Every hop is a signature over canonical bytes, checked against the holder key of the mandate above it, and the top hop is checked against the charter's root authority keys and threshold. Anyone who holds the documents can verify the whole chain offline. Revocation is the one fact a held copy cannot supply, because it happens after issuance, so it comes from the registry.

Next: Example: approval and revocation