Approve your first Stamped Mandate

Private preview: this is rolling out and may not be available on your account yet.

Coming soon: payments arrive in a fast-follow release.

A Stamped Mandate is an authorisation you sign for what an agent may do for you. It belongs to your account, not to the agent that asked for it. This is your first one, and it’s a spending mandate: what your agent may spend on, how much, and until when. It’s one kind among several — see what a mandate can authorise. Your agent asks. You decide. Your agent can never approve its own mandate. It can propose one and check what you decided. Only you can approve it, with your passkey, on a Sumvin page in your own browser, away from the conversation.

Before you start

You’re verified. A request from an account that isn’t verified yet is refused, and your agent tells you which step is missing.
To approve from your agent: you’ve created your signing key, the passkey you approve with. You do this in your browser at the end of verification. The terminal uses its own key instead; see the terminal tab below.

Approve

In your agent (MCP, recommended)
In the terminal (CLI, for developers)

Ask for a limit

Tell your agent what you want it to be able to do, and how much it may spend. It proposes a mandate with mandate_request and tells you, in your own money’s terms, the most it would ever authorise.Nothing is granted yet. Asking twice for the same thing doesn’t create two requests; it re-opens the one you already have.

Open the review

In chat apps that support it, a Spending authority card appears in the conversation. It shows the limit (Up to), what it Spends on, when the request Lapses if you don’t answer, and, once signed, how long the mandate Lasts until. Choose Review and sign; your browser opens.A request to read your linked accounts or prove your balance shows Reads, Proves or Reads and proves in place of Spends on, and has no limit.Everywhere else, your agent gives you a link to open instead. The link is issued once. If it’s lost, ask your agent to request the mandate again.

Set up your signing key (only if you skipped it)

You normally create your signing key at the end of verification. If you didn’t, the page says this account can’t approve requests yet and offers Set up your signing key. Follow it and create a passkey when your browser asks. Then ask your agent to request the mandate again.You do this once. Later reviews go straight to the request.

Read what you're signing

The page is headed An agent is asking for spending authority and shows who you’re approving as. Under Your signature binds it lists the statement, what the mandate spends on, and how long it lasts. What you see here is exactly what you sign.

Grant or decline

Choose Grant this authority and confirm with your passkey, or choose Decline. Soon after you create your signing key, the page may say your account is finishing setup; it carries on by itself. Declining authorises nothing and needs no signature. The page confirms Authority granted or Request declined, and tells you to return to your agent.

Back in the conversation

The card updates to show your decision. Your agent learns the outcome by checking with mandate_status; nothing is pushed to it, so it may need a moment before it checks.

In the terminal, you approve a Stamped Mandate when an errand is waiting for your approval.

Set up a signing key (first time only)

sumvin keys generate
sumvin keys add-to-safe

keys generate creates a signing key on this machine. keys add-to-safe registers it to your account and waits until the registration is confirmed. Your key stays on your machine.

Review the mandate

sumvin errand approve <errand-id>

The CLI shows the statement, the spend limit on its own line, and the expiry, then asks you to confirm:

Authorise a purchase for errand <errand-id>. Purchase proceeds only while all of the following hold:
- the price is at most 180 USD
- availability is one of: in_stock

Ceiling: Up to USD 200.00
Expires: 2026-08-12T07:30:00.000Z

Approve this errand's purchase?

Read the ceiling as carefully as the statement. The statement doesn’t contain it, and the ceiling is what your signature binds.

Confirm or decline

Answer y to sign and submit. Anything else sends nothing. To decline instead:

sumvin errand reject <errand-id>

Declining cancels the errand and authorises nothing.

What you’ll see

Status	What it means
Waiting on you	You haven’t answered yet. Nothing is authorised.
Granted	You signed. Your agent can now spend within this limit.
Declined	Nothing was authorised.
Lapsed	The request expired unanswered. Nothing was authorised. Ask your agent to request it again.
Replaced	A newer request replaced this one. Use the latest card.

Your agent sees these as proposed, stamped, declined and expired. If a request ended some other way than you answering it, for example it was withdrawn, your agent receives a reason it can read back to you.

Two ways to approve

A Stamped Mandate can work in one of two ways:

Approve each purchase. Your agent prepares a purchase and waits for you to sign it. This is the default.
Pre-authorise repeat errands. You sign once, with limits, and your agent can repeat an errand within them without asking again. See Repeat errands.

What can go wrong

The card says the review page couldn't be opened

Ask your agent for the review link and open it yourself.

The page says your account setup isn't finished

You’ll see Your account setup isn’t finished. Finish verification, then ask your agent to request the mandate again. You can still decline the request so your agent isn’t left waiting.

The page says your signing key isn't set up yet

You haven’t created your signing key. Choose Set up your signing key, create your passkey, then ask your agent to request the mandate again. You can still decline the request so your agent isn’t left waiting.

The page says 'Signing key unavailable'

Your signing key couldn’t be unlocked on this device. Nothing was authorised. Try again with the passkey you created, or ask your agent to try again if this keeps happening.

The page says 'Different account' or 'Different signing key'

You’re signed in as someone other than the account your agent named. Sign in with the right account, then try again.

The link expired or was already decided

Link expired means the request lapsed; ask your agent to request it again. Already decided means there is nothing left to do.

In the terminal: 'This errand's approval mandate has expired'

You can’t approve an expired mandate. Run sumvin errand reject <errand-id> to close the errand, then start a new one.

In the terminal: the signature isn't recognised

Run sumvin errand approve again; each run fetches the current terms. If it fails again, check your key with sumvin keys show.

Try asking your agent: “Set up a spending limit of $50 for groceries this week.”

Start here

Connect your agent

Use the CLI

Your first

Approve your first Stamped Mandate

Before you start

Approve

What you’ll see

Two ways to approve

What can go wrong

​Before you start

​Approve

​What you’ll see

​Two ways to approve

​What can go wrong

Before you start

Approve

What you’ll see

Two ways to approve

What can go wrong