> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.attesso.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Mandates and authorizations

> Understand immutable authority, reservations, and single-use execution.

## Mandates

A Mandate is an immutable statement of what one authenticated end user approved. If the authority changes, create and approve a new Mandate rather than mutating the old one.

Every Mandate contains an opaque `subject_reference`, one policy, an approval deadline, and a validity window of at most 30 days.

| State              | Meaning                              |
| ------------------ | ------------------------------------ |
| `PENDING_APPROVAL` | Created but not approved             |
| `SCHEDULED`        | Approved and starts later            |
| `ACTIVE`           | Eligible for evaluation              |
| `CONSUMED`         | One allowed execution was committed  |
| `REVOKED`          | Permanently withdrawn                |
| `EXPIRED`          | Approval or validity deadline passed |

`CONSUMED`, `REVOKED`, and `EXPIRED` are terminal.

## Authorizations

An Authorization is the durable result of evaluating one proposed action. Every structurally valid evaluation creates one, including non-allow results.

| Decision        | Result                                                       |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `ALLOW`         | Every constraint matched and one reservation was created     |
| `DENY`          | The action or a present value did not match                  |
| `INDETERMINATE` | Required data was missing, incorrectly typed, or unsupported |

An `ALLOW` starts in `RESERVED`. It may become `COMMITTED`, `CANCELLED`, or `EXPIRED`. Non-allow decisions use terminal `DENIED` or `INDETERMINATE` states.

## Single-use guarantee

* A Mandate may evaluate many candidates but can have only one active reservation.
* Concurrent eligible requests cannot both reserve it.
* Cancellation or reservation expiry permits a later eligible attempt.
* Commit permanently consumes the Mandate.
* `can_execute` is true only for an unexpired `ALLOW` reservation.

<Warning>
  Disable any external credential before cancelling or revoking. Attesso records your assertion but cannot disable cards, tokens, provider jobs, or bookings.
</Warning>

<Card title="Complete an authorization" icon="git-branch" href="/guides/complete-an-authorization">
  Implement execution gating, commit, cancellation, and retries.
</Card>