Mandate

Mandate: the helper can ask to pay. It cannot send the money.

Problem: AI helpers that hold raw keys get drained by prompt injection and look-alike payees. A prompt saying "stay under $50" is not a lock.

Product: a human sets the spending desk once — dollar limits, who can be paid, and when it must ask you first (yes / ask you / no). Freeze anytime. The agent only asks via POST /api/v1/pay. A policy gate outside the model decides; fields like approved:true are ignored. Caps, holds, day-stop, and Freeze are enforced in code.

NEAR: travel-ops company-of-one demo on NEAR HACKATHON (AI Security & Defense). Settlement path is NEAR Intents dry-quote on allow; settlement.submitted stays false — no invented hash, money not sent. Live site https://mandate-ashy.vercel.app · console /console · repo https://github.com/arults/Mandate · demo video on the X post.

Built at NEAR HACKATHON 2026 (tracks: security, agents, business).