The mandate & selective dispatch

The mandate is a set of contracts, not a document

In Sail, the mandate is the set of permissions registered for an SMA — contracts implementing IPermission that define what the manager is authorized to do. The Safe is the account the mandate applies to; it is not itself part of the mandate.

The kernel stores, per account, an ordered list of permission addresses plus an index map for O(1) membership checks. Adding to the mandate is registerPermission (or registerPermissions for several at once); removing is revokePermission / revokePermissions; swapping atomically is replacePermission / replacePermissions. Each of these is authorized by an EIP-712 signature from the Permission Signer.

Selective dispatch: one named permission authorizes each call

When the manager submits a transaction, its signature names one registered permission as the authorizer for that dispatch:

function dispatch(
    address account,
    address permission,   // the single permission that must approve this call
    address target,
    uint256 value,
    bytes calldata data,
    bytes calldata managerSig,
    uint256 deadline
) external;

The kernel calls evaluate() on that permission alone — no other registered permission is consulted — and dispatches the call to the Safe only if it returns true.

This is selective authorization. It replaced an earlier conjunctive (AND-of-all) model, and the difference matters: with selective dispatch, unrelated permissions can coexist on one account without falsely denying each other. A swap permission, a borrow permission, and a transfer permission can all be registered; each call names the one that should authorize it, and the others stay out of the way.

Mandate = union; dispatch = selection. The mandate is the union of all registered permissions. Each dispatch selects one of them as its authorizer. Layered "must satisfy several permissions at once" composition is not provided by the kernel — express compound rules inside a single permission (or a batch permission) instead.

What happens on a denied call

If the manager names a permission that is not registered, the kernel reverts with PermissionNotRegistered before any evaluation. If the named permission returns false, reverts, runs out of gas, or returns malformed data, the kernel reverts the whole dispatch with PermissionDenied. Either way, no state change occurs — the call never reaches the Safe.

Batches

For multi-step strategies that must execute atomically (the classic case being an approve → call → reset sequence), the kernel exposes dispatchBatch, gated by a single batch-aware permission implementing IBatchPermission. The same selective model applies: one named permission validates the entire call sequence. See single & batch dispatch.

Next: the four guarantees that protect the kernel from whatever a permission does.