Agent Permissions#

An agent permission is what authorizes everything Ava does in Auto. You sign it from your main wallet for your Ava smart wallet — the separate smart account you fund for Auto (see Smart Wallets) — and the smart wallet enforces it on-chain. You see and change it in Ava Studio, in the Agent permissions window.

It covers both kinds of Auto work: one-off actions you ask for in chat (supply to Aave, swap on Uniswap, send USDC — you still tap Confirm), and standing jobs that run on a schedule without a prompt (health-factor protection, recurring pay and swaps). Turning off a permission stops Ava using it for every job and action that relied on it.

Where to find it#

In Ava Studio, open Wallets (/wallets), find your Ava smart wallet, and choose Edit permissions. The Deposit and Withdraw buttons are on the same card.

The standard permission#

When an Auto action needs a permission, Ava offers the standard permission: one signature per smart wallet and chain. It lets Ava approve, send and revoke the main tokens on that chain (USDC, USDT, DAI, WETH, WBTC, LINK and UNI where available), wrap and unwrap ETH, swap on Uniswap V3 and use Aave V3 from the smart wallet, with no spending limit, for 365 days. The window shows what it covers and when it ends, with a Turn off standard permission button.

Narrower permissions#

To set limits instead, turn off the standard permission first, then choose permissions one by one — Send ERC-20 tokens, Uniswap V3 swaps, Aave V3 (supply / repay / borrow) — each with:

• A plain-English summary of what Ava is authorized to do on that network.
• The allowed contracts, by name and address, each linked to a block explorer. Individual functions aren't listed.
• A total spending limit on the token you choose — a running total over the permission's life that doesn't refill. It covers that token only: the Uniswap V3 and Aave V3 permissions also allow approving WETH without a limit, and Aave borrowing or withdrawing isn't a token spend.
• An expiry: 1 day, 7 days, 30 days (the default) or a date you pick.
• Enable or Disable, per chain.

What a permission covers#

Permissions are scoped to an app's contracts, not to individual functions:

• Aave V3 covers supply, withdraw, borrow, repay and collateral settings on the Aave V3 pool. Ava won't borrow unless you ask — that's how Ava behaves, not something the permission blocks.
• Sending tokens isn't tied to a recipient on-chain. The recipient is set in the job or the request you confirm.

Each permission is for one chain. What Ava can do in Auto is bounded by the permission's contracts and expiry, by its spending limits if it has them, and always by what you've funded into the smart wallet. Spending limits cap what Ava is authorized to spend. They don't cap losses on your DeFi positions.

Changing a permission#

Each change is a new signature from your main wallet — a signature, not a transaction, so it costs no gas. Studio combines the permissions you enable on a wallet and chain into one shared permission. Raising a limit, adding a capability or extending the expiry all mean signing again. Ava can't widen its own permission; only your main wallet's signature installs one.

When a job needs more than your current permission allows, chat can ask you to sign a change, and shows it before you sign. Chat can't turn a permission off — Ava points you to this window.

Turning off a permission#

Press Turn off standard permission, or Disable a narrower one. Ava stops using the permission for every standing job and one-off action that relied on it. Studio then asks your main wallet to send an on-chain removal transaction — a normal transaction, so you pay gas. If that fails, or the permission is on another chain, a Finish on-chain removal button appears. Until the removal lands on-chain (or the permission expires), the permission stays installed on the smart wallet.

To stop just one job and keep the permission, pause it on Running instead. To take funds out of Auto's reach, Withdraw from the smart wallet — that doesn't turn off the permission, so turn it off too if you want Auto off. See Revoking Access for the step-by-step.

Verifying on-chain#

The permission isn't just an app setting. The smart wallet enforces it on-chain: a call outside what the permission allows, spending past a limit it sets, or any use after expiry is refused by the chain, not just by Ava. Ava never gets spending access to your main wallet. Each allowed contract links to a block explorer, so you can check exactly which contracts Ava may call.

Trust nothing, verify everything — the window is for ergonomics, the chain is the truth.