Learn · updated 31 Oct 2026

Glossary: execution authority, mandate, fail-closed and more

A glossary of the terms Nevarn uses: execution authority, mandate, fail-closed, drift, halt and double-entry. Each describes one part of the same idea — an automated actor may move money only inside limits someone set, every decision is recorded, and the books are checked against the public chain.

Execution authority: An independent service that rules on each consequential action before it happens. Nevarn uses Decionis: four answers can come back — proceed, refuse, refer to a person, or hold — and only proceed releases the action.
Mandate: The bounds an automated actor works inside: the venues it may use, the actions it may take, a ceiling per transaction with a rolling daily limit, and an expiry of at most ninety days. The mandate format is Decionis's; on Nevarn's side, signing inside a mandate means a permission the customer's own account accepts.
Fail-closed: Refusing when the system cannot be sure. In Nevarn an unreachable authority, a stale price or a missing limit means the order is refused, not waved through.
Drift: A difference between what the books say and what the account holds on the public blockchain. Nevarn shows it beside both figures and never quietly corrects itself to make the two agree.
Halt: One action that stops all signing on an account, effective on the next request. Every order proposed while the halt is on is refused and recorded.
Double-entry: Writing every movement of money as two matching entries. Nevarn rejects any record whose halves do not cancel, holds amounts exactly, and recomputes balances from the records each time they are shown.