Mandate
A checkable statement of what an agent may do for a principal: which action, how much, with whom and until when.
A mandate is a statement of what an agent may do for a principal: which action, up to what amount, with which counterparties and until when. In the Agent Payments Protocol a mandate is a tamper-evident, cryptographically signed digital credential, and in OAuth-based systems the same idea is carried by scopes or rich authorisation details. A well-formed mandate can be checked by a third party without asking the agent, which is what makes it useful as evidence.
Agent Minute explains this term on 6 October 2026.
Related terms
PrincipalThe person or organisation on whose behalf an agent acts and whose authority the agent exercises.Open mandateIn AP2, a mandate not yet bound to one action, carrying the user's constraints for the agent to act within.Closed mandateIn AP2, a mandate bound to one specific action, such as a finalised checkout or a specific amount.Rich Authorization RequestsAn OAuth extension that carries structured details of the action being authorised, such as amount and payee.Spend limitA cap on how much an agent may pay, enforced by the system that executes the payment, not by the agent.