Accounts
A Salt Account is a policy-controlled signing wallet owned by an Organisation.
Each Account is controlled by a set of signing participants. Those signing participants are made up of proposers and Robo Guardians, and each Account has a threshold that determines how many participants are required to produce a valid transaction signature.
Accounts sit inside Organisations and inherit the Organisation's collaborators, access levels, and Robo Guardian configuration.
For a deeper technical view of how signing material is created and used, see Key shards and signing.
Account signers
Salt Accounts are controlled by signing participants.
A signing participant is any participant that holds signing authority for an Account. In Salt's supported Account configurations, signing participants are made up of proposers and Robo Guardians.
Each signing participant corresponds to one share of the Account's distributed signing authority. For more detail on how signing material is created and used, see Key shards and signing.
Proposers
A proposer is a signing participant that can initiate or participate in Account workflows.
Proposers are usually human users, applications, bots, or services that are authorised to act within an Organisation. A proposer can create transaction proposals and take part in signing workflows, subject to the Account's policies.
Robo Guardians
A Robo Guardian is an automated co-signer for a Salt Account.
Robo Guardians participate in Account creation and signing workflows when the relevant policy conditions are satisfied. They are designed to stay online when human signers are not, so approved workflows can continue without requiring manual approval every time.
Robo Guardians run on infrastructure chosen by the Organisation.
Threshold
The threshold is the number of signing participants required to produce a valid transaction signature.
For example, an Account with 5 signing participants and a threshold of 3 requires 3 eligible signing participants to complete a signing workflow.
Account configurations
An Account configuration defines the number of proposers, Robo Guardians, total signing participants, and the signing threshold for an Account.
Salt currently supports the following Account configurations.
| Proposers | Robo Guardians | Total signing participants | Threshold |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 |
| 4 | 3 | 7 | 4 |
The total number of signing participants is the number of proposers plus Robo Guardians.
The threshold determines how many signing participants are required to produce a valid transaction signature.
For example, in a 3-proposer, 2-Robo Guardian configuration, the Account has 5 signing participants. The threshold is 3, so 3 eligible signing participants are required to sign.
How Accounts are created
Account creation is a multi-participant workflow coordinated by Salt.
At a high level:
- An Organisation owner initiates Account creation.
- The Account creator chooses the Account's additional proposer(s), which determines the account configuration.
- The required Robo Guardians are added based on the account configuration.
- Signing participants come online.
- Salt coordinates the Account creation ceremony.
- The Account's expected signing paths are validated.
- Key shard backup is prepared for recovery.
Salt coordinates this workflow, but does not generate, receive, or store private key material.
For a technical overview of the account creation flow, see Key shards and signing.
Using an Account
Salt Accounts are used through transaction proposals.
Only proposers on the Account can submit transaction proposals. A proposer may be a human user, application, bot, or service authorised to act for that Account through the Salt App or an application using the Salt SDK.
Before the transaction is signed, the proposal is checked against the Account's active policies. If the proposal satisfies policy, the required signing participants can participate in the signing workflow.
Once the Account threshold is met, a valid transaction signature can be produced and broadcast to the target chain.
Works across EVM chains
A Salt Account address is the same across EVM chains.
There is no need to create a separate Account or address for each EVM chain you want to use. The Organisation that controls the Account cryptographically controls that address across supported EVM networks, including networks the Organisation has not used yet.
For currently supported EVM chains, the resulting signature is a standard ECDSA signature that can be submitted to an EVM chain as if it came from any EOA.
Bitcoin and Solana support are planned as Salt expands beyond EVM accounts.