Agent permissions 4 min read
Let it act.
Set the limits.
Give an agent a useful task and a defined scope. Make its budget, allowed actions and access duration work together.
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A permission brief, explained
One task.
Four boundaries.
Consider a task with the limits below. Each answers a different question, and all four apply together.
300 USDC
The assets within reach of the task. A separate allocation gives the agent a defined budget instead of access to the rest of your portfolio.
50 USDC / day
The most it may use in a period. This does not increase the total allocation. Check when the period resets and how spending across assets and network fees is counted.
An explicit
allowed list.
Name the services and actions the task needs. A new recipient, contract or type of trade deserves its own scope decision.
7 days
A defined window for this assignment. Review the task again before extending it. Use a shorter period when the work does not need as long.
Instruction & authority
A clear brief.
An enforced boundary.
An instruction tells an agent what you want. A permission defines the authority it actually has. A sentence in a prompt is not a substitute for a limit enforced by the wallet or execution system.
Check how those limits apply to the assets, networks and services involved. Keep your main wallet’s recovery information separate from the agent’s task.
Spending limits contain exposure, but an allowed trade can still lose value and an approved protocol can still fail. Review the decision as well as the boundary.
The amount matters. So does the way it becomes available.
A fixed allowance, a periodic budget and a streaming limit release spending authority differently. MetaMask’s ERC-20 permissions provide concrete examples of all three.
Fixed allowance
A maximum total amount can be used across transfers. Once that allowance is consumed, it does not replenish just because a new day begins.
Periodic budget
Transfers share a limit for a defined period, which resets when the next period starts. Check the period’s start and duration; do not assume the reset follows your device’s local midnight.
Streaming limit
After a defined start, the available allowance grows at a set rate, up to a maximum. An initial amount may also be available. This describes permission to transfer, not interest earned.
Implementation example: MetaMask’s fixed, periodic and streaming permissions.
Read the activity
What it proposed.
What actually happened.
An intention, a permission decision and a network result tell different parts of the story.
Inspect the proposal.
Look at the action, destination and expected cost. Compare them with the task you assigned.
Check the permission decision.
A proposed action may be blocked, allowed or require your review. A confident explanation does not grant additional authority.
Verify the network result.
Approval does not mean completion. Follow submitted transactions to their result before evaluating the task or changing its budget.
Ending access
Revoke the permission.
Review what remains.
Ending authority affects future actions under that permission. It does not rewind everything the agent has already done.
New actions
Verify that the revocation took effect before relying on the permission being closed.
Submitted transactions
An action already sent to the network may still settle. Check its current status.
Positions & allowances
Review open positions and contract approvals separately. They may need their own closing or revocation steps.
When the brief changes
A new service?
A new decision.
Imagine an agent finds an opportunity through a service outside its allowed list. Review that service and the access it requests before changing the task’s scope.
Ask whether the new action serves the original goal, what additional exposure it creates and when that extra access should end. Update only the permissions you choose to grant.
Explore agent walletsRead who does what
The owner.
The executor.
The destination.
Giving an account permission to act and choosing where a payment goes are separate decisions. Identify each role in the request.
The account giving authority
This is the account whose assets or actions are within the permission’s scope. An app can show several accounts, so check which one is authorizing the assignment.
The executor receiving authority
An agent or service can use a separate account to exercise the permission. That executor’s identity is not automatically the address that should receive the payment.
The target of the action
A transaction can call a token contract while naming the eventual recipient inside the transfer instruction. Check both the action and its destination; recognizing one contract address does not describe every permitted call.
Technical background: ERC-7715’s permission participants and MetaMask’s delegated-transfer example.