Architecture

Sail draws a hard line between a small trusted core and an open, untrusted periphery. The security analysis lives entirely in the core; everything outside it is contained by the four evaluation guarantees.

Trusted core vs. periphery

	Contracts	Trust
Trusted core	SailKernel, SailGovernance, TimelockController	Audited; their correctness is assumed. The kernel and governance are the only contracts that can move Safe assets or change parameters.
Trusted helpers	SafeModuleEnabler, MandateFactory, StandardFeePolicy	Constrained by construction: the enabler is stateless, the factory holds no privilege, and fee policies must be on a governance allowlist.
Periphery	Permission templates, custom fee policies, oracles	User-deployed, unaudited by default. A bug here affects only the accounts that opted into it. The kernel never trusts them.

Blast radius. A bug in a permission template affects only accounts that registered it; a bug in a fee policy affects only accounts using it. Nothing in the periphery can compromise the kernel or another account.

Component map

Component	Responsibility	Page
SailKernel	Account registration, permission registry, EIP-712 verification, single & batch dispatch, fee accounting, principal tracking.	SailKernel
SailGovernance	Constitutional caps + tunable parameters behind a 48h timelock; emergency pause; trusted allowlists.	Governance
TimelockController	Standalone 48h timelock, injected into governance and validated at construction.	Governance
MandateFactory	Bundles configure → register into one transaction. No privilege.	MandateFactory
SafeModuleEnabler	Enables the kernel as a Safe module during account creation.	SafeModuleEnabler
StandardFeePolicy	Reference 2-and-20 fee policy.	Fee model

Dependency direction

SailKernel ── reads params, cut, caps, allowlists ──▶ SailGovernance ──▶ TimelockController
SailKernel ── computeFee / recordCollection ────────▶ IFeePolicy (StandardFeePolicy or custom)
SailKernel ── evaluate / evaluateBatch (staticcall) ▶ IPermission / IBatchPermission (periphery)
SailKernel ── execTransactionFromModule ───────────▶ ISafe (the SMA)

The kernel inherits OpenZeppelin’s EIP712 and ReentrancyGuard. It reads — but never writes — governance state, and it calls out to fee policies and permissions only through tightly bounded paths (recordCollection after a CEI-ordered fee split; evaluate under staticcall + gas cap).

Two dispatch paths

• Single dispatch (dispatch) — one call, gated by one named permission.
• Batch dispatch (dispatchBatch) — an ordered array of calls executed atomically, gated by one named batch-aware permission.

Both follow selective authorization. See single & batch dispatch.