Signature Request

Overview

Signature Request is an API identity or security mechanism that asks a user, wallet, key service, or cryptographic module to sign defined data using an authorized private key. The request can cover a transaction, message, authentication challenge, document digest, or API payload. Verification must reconstruct the same canonical bytes and enforce the intended authorization context. For Signature Request, secrets and tokens should remain outside browser bundles, URLs, ordinary logs, and unprotected configuration.

Applications should use domain separation, fresh nonces, expiry, clear display, exact network and account binding, and minimal permissions. A valid signature proves key use, not informed consent or business legitimacy. Opaque or ambiguous data can trick a signer into approving unintended actions. Replayed challenges, wrong-chain transactions, malicious token approvals, and unlimited permissions are common risks. The Signature Request recovery process should restore access without bypassing the original identity and authorization controls.

An audit trail for Signature Request should link the contract and client version, principal, request identifier, sanitized payload evidence, response, callbacks, retries, overrides, provider references, and final state. It should present the exact domain, network, account, purpose, and human-readable meaning of the bytes being authorized. The Signature Request boundary should identify the principal, credential or key, permitted audience, scope, lifetime, and revocation path.

Hardware or isolated signers should preserve key security.

Changes to Signature Request should preserve overlap or recovery where required while preventing old credentials from remaining active indefinitely.

Evidence for Signature Request should record the credential or certificate identifier and decision result without retaining the secret itself.