---
title: Standing Mandate
type: glossary-entry
level: L1
status: live
revision: 1
updated: 2026-08-14
systemVersion: 4.2
tags: [autonomy, governance, glossary]
rating: 5.75
ratingAxes: useful 6 · evidence 6 · pull 5 · original 5 · form 7
ratingKind: derived
source: operating vocabulary, in production
---

# Standing Mandate

_Written 2026-08-14 · last verified 2026-08-14 · system v4.2 · live_

**TL;DR** — A standing mandate lets an agent act without asking, but only inside a fixed set of conditions — reversible, verified, no external effect, audit-logged, capped per day. It fails closed: if any single condition cannot be shown to hold, the action goes back to asking.

## Definition

A pre-authorisation to act without asking, bounded by conditions that must **all** hold. Not a permission level and not a judgement call — a checklist evaluated before each action.

## In practice

The live mandate covers reversible internal fixes and requires all 6 of: a backup and rollback path, a verification step, no external effect, exclusion of anything governance-related, an audit log entry, and semantic neutrality. Cap: 10 actions per day.

It **fails closed**. If any one condition cannot be demonstrated, the action reverts to asking.

## See also

`term-executor` · `the-green-light-nobody-owns`