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Universal Delegator

The Universal Delegator is the execution layer that sits between vaults and adapters. While vaults custody assets and maintain the ERC-4626 accounting model, the Universal Delegator is responsible for deciding where capital is deployed, how it moves between strategies, and how liquidity is retrieved when withdrawals occur.

Rather than integrating directly with every application or external protocol, vaults allocate capital through a single Universal Delegator instance. The delegator exposes a standardized interface for capital allocation while abstracting away the underlying implementation of each strategy.

This modular architecture allows a vault to support multiple yield sources simultaneously without modifying its own logic. As new adapters become available, they can simply be added to the delegator, enabling curators to evolve vault strategies over time while preserving a consistent accounting and security model.

Responsibilities

The Universal Delegator is responsible for coordinating all capital movements between a vault and its adapters. Its responsibilities include:

  • Managing the list of adapters supported by the vault.
  • Allocating idle capital according to the curator's strategy.
  • Enforcing per-adapter allocation limits.
  • Coordinating withdrawals across multiple adapters.
  • Tracking pending withdrawal requests.
  • Automatically allocating newly deposited capital.
  • Providing a unified execution layer independently of the underlying strategy.

Because every adapter exposes the same interface, the Universal Delegator interacts with infrastructure applications, DeFi protocols, and RWA strategies in exactly the same way.

Capital Allocation

When assets are deposited into a vault, they initially remain as idle capital. Depending on the vault's configuration, the Universal Delegator can automatically allocate those assets across one or more adapters.

Each adapter defines how much additional capital it is currently able to accept, while the curator defines the maximum allocation that adapter may receive. The Universal Delegator only allocates capital when both conditions are satisfied.

Multiple allocation constraints can coexist simultaneously, allowing curators to build diversified portfolios across independent strategies while maintaining strict risk controls.

Adapter Limits

Each adapter can be configured with two independent allocation limits:

  • Absolute Limit, defining the maximum amount of collateral that may be allocated to the adapter.
  • Share Limit, defining the maximum percentage of the vault's total assets that may be allocated.

The effective allocation limit is always the lower of these two values. This allows strategies to scale naturally as vault assets grow while still enforcing fixed exposure caps when necessary.

Automatic Allocation

Curators may designate one or more adapters as Auto Allocate Adapters.

Whenever new capital enters the vault, the Universal Delegator attempts to distribute idle assets across these adapters according to their configured ordering and available capacity. If an adapter cannot accept additional assets, allocation automatically continues with the next adapter in the list.

This mechanism allows vaults to continuously deploy capital without requiring manual intervention.

Withdrawals

Withdrawals follow the reverse flow.

Whenever users redeem vault shares, the vault first consumes any available idle assets. If additional liquidity is required, the Universal Delegator begins retrieving capital from the underlying adapters.

Because different strategies have different settlement characteristics, adapters may either:

  • return liquidity immediately,
  • partially satisfy the request,
  • or require an asynchronous withdrawal process.

The Universal Delegator coordinates these requests while presenting a single withdrawal interface to the vault.

Pending Withdrawals

Not every strategy can return capital immediately.

For example, an adapter may need to wait for an external lending market, redemption window, or settlement period before liquidity becomes available.

When this occurs, the Universal Delegator records the outstanding withdrawal request and periodically attempts to complete it as liquidity becomes available. Once sufficient assets have been recovered, they are transferred back to the vault to satisfy pending withdrawals.

This mechanism allows vaults to support strategies with heterogeneous liquidity profiles while maintaining consistent withdrawal semantics.

Adapter Management

The Universal Delegator allows curators to evolve a vault's strategy throughout its lifetime without modifying the vault itself. Curators can add or remove adapters, configure allocation limits, reorder allocation priority, and define which adapters should automatically receive newly deposited capital. Because each strategy is encapsulated within its own adapter, vaults can adapt to changing market conditions or integrate new yield sources without requiring migrations or changes to the underlying ERC-4626 accounting model.

Permissions

The Universal Delegator uses a role-based permission system to separate operational responsibilities. Different roles control actions such as allocating and deallocating capital, managing adapters, configuring allocation limits, and updating automatic allocation settings. This allows each vault to implement its own governance model while ensuring that only authorized entities can modify the vault's strategy or move capital.