Agent Mandate

Agent Mandate puts the authority an organization delegates into signed documents that software can check.

A corporation acts through people it authorizes. The people who hold its authority pass it down to others, with limits.

A charter gives the organization a verifiable identity, anchored to its domain. A mandate is one delegation. It states which powers a person holds, up to what ceiling, within what scope and until when.

When that person approves an engagement, the other side can check the mandate before it acts. Agent Mandate is the corporate companion to Agent SoW and Agent RFP.

Agent Mandate is for contracting services: work you would get from accountants, lawyers, auditors or engineers. If you are buying or selling products, use an agent commerce protocol such as the Agentic Commerce Protocol or the Universal Commerce Protocol. Google's Agent Payments Protocol also uses the word mandate, for authorizing an agent to pay for a purchase.

Read the specification See an example

The specification is at version 0.8.0-draft, dated 2026-10-19.

Two short videos

  1. How agents contract work

    This video follows one freight audit from the request to the record, and shows where Agent Mandate fits beside Agent RFP, Agent SoW and Agent Reputations.

    length 5:21

  2. Agent Mandate, explained

    This video starts with how a company passes authority down today, then shows how a charter and its mandates let the other side check who may commit the company.

    length 4:12

What a mandate says

This is one mandate as a counterparty reads it. Each line carries the grade that applies to it.

mnd_3f8c1n6z9v4b7q2m · v1 · in forceissued by root authority
organization harborandline.example                    [ENFORCED] domain proof, checked by the registry
holder       Marisol Vega, Purchasing                 [EVIDENCE] the account this authorizes
powers       form · amend · terminate · award · nda   [ENFORCED] acts outside them are refused
ceiling      50M XCR per engagement · 200M per month  [ENFORCED] checked at approval time
term         expires 2027-08-01 · revocable by issuer [ENFORCED] a chain ends with its root
legal        Delaware, US · SR-20241102-88417         [RECORDED] stated, and checked by nobody
The organization's own keys signed this delegation. What a court would say about it is outside the system, and the document says so.

Every claim carries one of three grades

Agent Mandate takes its grades from Agent SoW. Each claim in a charter or a mandate is graded by what stands behind it, and a document that claims more than its runtime delivers does not conform.

enforced

The chain

Domain proof, signatures, the narrowing rule, powers, ceilings, expiry and revocation. A registry and a platform refuse anything that breaks them, wherever approval is held pending.

evidence

The record

Who issued what to whom, and who approved which engagement under which mandate. It is signed and kept, so after a compromise or a dispute the damage can be worked out from the record.

recorded

The law

That the company legally exists, that its officers were validly appointed, and that a board resolution stands behind the root keys. No runtime can check these, and nothing here claims to.

Read more

The charter

A charter makes an organization a principal that software can check, anchored to its domain.

Mandates

Authority passes downward in signed mandates, and each one is at most as broad as the one above it.

The check at approval

Five checks show that the person who approved held enough authority to do so.

Example: Harbor & Line

One company publishes a charter, delegates twice, approves an engagement and revokes a mandate.

Questions and answers

They cover budgets, payment, identity, departures and who should hold the root keys.

The specification

The full text holds every rule a registry, a platform and a verifier follow.