Glossary — Agentic Finance
What is an Agent Session?
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A bounded execution context where an agent performs a specific task with its own budget, permissions, and time limits. Financial authority expires when the session ends.
WHY IT MATTERS
Sessions scope authority: "research market data, budget $50, expires in 2 hours." Agent operates within context, loses authority on completion.
Like OAuth tokens — temporary, scoped, expiring. Prevents stale permissions and limits blast radius.
Can nest: master session spawns sub-sessions for steps, each with its own carved budget.
HOW POLICYLAYER USES THIS
PolicyLayer scopes spending rules to sessions — temporary budgets expiring with task completion.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Duration?
Configurable — minutes to days. Best practice: expected task length plus small buffer.
Extensions?
Yes, via API with authorization. Extensions are audit-logged.
In-progress transactions on expiry?
Unsigned transactions blocked. Already-submitted ones unaffected — sessions control signing, not on-chain execution.