Approval Management

NEP-178

Version 1.1.0

Summary

A system for allowing a set of users or contracts to transfer specific Non-Fungible Tokens on behalf of an owner. Similar to approval management systems in standards like ERC-721.

Motivation

People familiar with ERC-721 may expect to need an approval management system for basic transfers, where a simple transfer from Alice to Bob requires that Alice first approve Bob to spend one of her tokens, after which Bob can call transfer_from to actually transfer the token to himself.

NEAR's core Non-Fungible Token standard includes good support for safe atomic transfers without such complexity. It even provides "transfer and call" functionality (nft_transfer_call) which allows a specific token to be "attached" to a call to a separate contract. For many Non-Fungible Token workflows, these options may circumvent the need for a full-blown Approval Managament system.

However, some Non-Fungible Token developers, marketplaces, dApps, or artists may require greater control. This standard provides a uniform interface allowing token owners to approve other NEAR accounts, whether individuals or contracts, to transfer specific tokens on the owner's behalf.

Prior art:

Ethereum's ERC-721
NEP-4, NEAR's old NFT standard that does not include approved_account_ids per token ID

Example Scenarios

Let's consider some examples. Our cast of characters & apps:

Alice: has account alice with no contract deployed to it
Bob: has account bob with no contract deployed to it
NFT: a contract with account nft, implementing only the Core NFT standard with this Approval Management extension
Market: a contract with account market which sells tokens from nft as well as other NFT contracts
Bazaar: similar to Market, but implemented differently (spoiler alert: has no nft_on_approve function!), has account bazaar

Alice and Bob are already registered with NFT, Market, and Bazaar, and Alice owns a token on the NFT contract with ID="1".

Let's examine the technical calls through the following scenarios:

Simple approval: Alice approves Bob to transfer her token.
Approval with cross-contract call (XCC): Alice approves Market to transfer one of her tokens and passes msg so that NFT will call nft_on_approve on Market's contract.
Approval with XCC, edge case: Alice approves Bazaar and passes msg again, but what's this? Bazaar doesn't implement nft_on_approve, so Alice sees an error in the transaction result. Not to worry, though, she checks nft_is_approved and sees that she did successfully approve Bazaar, despite the error.
Approval IDs: Bob buys Alice's token via Market.
Approval IDs, edge case: Bob transfers same token back to Alice, Alice re-approves Market & Bazaar. Bazaar has an outdated cache. Bob tries to buy from Bazaar at the old price.
Revoke one: Alice revokes Market's approval for this token.
Revoke all: Alice revokes all approval for this token.

1. Simple Approval

Alice approves Bob to transfer her token.

High-level explanation

Alice approves Bob
Alice queries the token to verify
Alice verifies a different way

Technical calls

Alice calls nft::nft_approve({ "token_id": "1", "account_id": "bob" }). She attaches 1 yoctoⓃ, (.000000000000000000000001Ⓝ). Using NEAR CLI to make this call, the command would be:
```
 near call nft nft_approve \
   '{ "token_id": "1", "account_id": "bob" }' \
   --accountId alice --depositYocto 1
```
The response:
```
''
```

Alice calls view method nft_token:

 near view nft nft_token \
   '{ "token_id": "1" }'

The response:

 {
   "token_id": "1",
   "owner_id": "alice.near",
   "approved_account_ids": {
     "bob": 1,
   }
 }

Alice calls view method nft_is_approved:

 near view nft nft_is_approved \
   '{ "token_id": "1", "approved_account_id": "bob" }'

The response:

true

2. Approval with cross-contract call

Alice approves Market to transfer one of her tokens and passes msg so that NFT will call nft_on_approve on Market's contract. She probably does this via Market's frontend app which would know how to construct msg in a useful way.

High-level explanation

Alice calls nft_approve to approve market to transfer her token, and passes a msg
Since msg is included, nft will schedule a cross-contract call to market
Market can do whatever it wants with this info, such as listing the token for sale at a given price. The result of this operation is returned as the promise outcome to the original nft_approve call.

Technical calls

Using near-cli:
```
 near call nft nft_approve '{
   "token_id": "1",
   "account_id": "market",
   "msg": "{\"action\": \"list\", \"price\": \"100\", \"token\": \"nDAI\" }"
 }' --accountId alice --depositYocto 1
```
At this point, near-cli will hang until the cross-contract call chain fully resolves, which would also be true if Alice used a Market frontend using near-api-js. Alice's part is done, though. The rest happens behind the scenes.

nft schedules a call to nft_on_approve on market. Using near-cli notation for easy cross-reference with the above, this would look like:

 near call market nft_on_approve '{
   "token_id": "1",
   "owner_id": "alice",
   "approval_id": 2,
   "msg": "{\"action\": \"list\", \"price\": \"100\", \"token\": \"nDAI\" }"
 }' --accountId nft

market now knows that it can sell Alice's token for 100 nDAI, and that when it transfers it to a buyer using nft_transfer, it can pass along the given approval_id to ensure that Alice hasn't changed her mind. It can schedule any further cross-contract calls it wants, and if it returns these promises correctly, Alice's initial near-cli call will resolve with the outcome from the final step in the chain. If Alice actually made this call from a Market frontend, the frontend can use this return value for something useful.

3. Approval with cross-contract call, edge case

Alice approves Bazaar and passes msg again. Maybe she actually does this via near-cli, rather than using Bazaar's frontend, because what's this? Bazaar doesn't implement nft_on_approve, so Alice sees an error in the transaction result.

Not to worry, though, she checks nft_is_approved and sees that she did successfully approve Bazaar, despite the error. She will have to find a new way to list her token for sale in Bazaar, rather than using the same msg shortcut that worked for Market.

High-level explanation

Alice calls nft_approve to approve bazaar to transfer her token, and passes a msg.
Since msg is included, nft will schedule a cross-contract call to bazaar.
Bazaar doesn't implement nft_on_approve, so this call results in an error. The approval still worked, but Alice sees an error in her near-cli output.
Alice checks if bazaar is approved, and sees that it is, despite the error.

Technical calls

Using near-cli:

 near call nft nft_approve '{
   "token_id": "1",
   "account_id": "bazaar",
   "msg": "{\"action\": \"list\", \"price\": \"100\", \"token\": \"nDAI\" }"
 }' --accountId alice --depositYocto 1

nft schedules a call to nft_on_approve on market. Using near-cli notation for easy cross-reference with the above, this would look like:

 near call bazaar nft_on_approve '{
   "token_id": "1",
   "owner_id": "alice",
   "approval_id": 3,
   "msg": "{\"action\": \"list\", \"price\": \"100\", \"token\": \"nDAI\" }"
 }' --accountId nft

💥 bazaar doesn't implement this method, so the call results in an error. Alice sees this error in the output from near-cli.
Alice checks if the approval itself worked, despite the error on the cross-contract call:
```
 near view nft nft_is_approved \
   '{ "token_id": "1", "approved_account_id": "bazaar" }'
```
The response:
```
true
```

4. Approval IDs

Bob buys Alice's token via Market. Bob probably does this via Market's frontend, which will probably initiate the transfer via a call to ft_transfer_call on the nDAI contract to transfer 100 nDAI to market. Like the NFT standard's "transfer and call" function, Fungible Token's ft_transfer_call takes a msg which market can use to pass along information it will need to pay Alice and actually transfer the NFT. The actual transfer of the NFT is the only part we care about here.

High-level explanation

Bob signs some transaction which results in the market contract calling nft_transfer on the nft contract, as described above. To be trustworthy and pass security audits, market needs to pass along approval_id so that it knows it has up-to-date information.

Technical calls

Using near-cli notation for consistency:

    near call nft nft_transfer '{
      "receiver_id": "bob",
      "token_id": "1",
      "approval_id": 2,
    }' --accountId market --depositYocto 1

5. Approval IDs, edge case

Bob transfers same token back to Alice, Alice re-approves Market & Bazaar, listing her token at a higher price than before. Bazaar is somehow unaware of these changes, and still stores approval_id: 3 internally along with Alice's old price. Bob tries to buy from Bazaar at the old price. Like the previous example, this probably starts with a call to a different contract, which eventually results in a call to nft_transfer on bazaar. Let's consider a possible scenario from that point.

High-level explanation

Bob signs some transaction which results in the bazaar contract calling nft_transfer on the nft contract, as described above. To be trustworthy and pass security audits, bazaar needs to pass along approval_id so that it knows it has up-to-date information. It does not have up-to-date information, so the call fails. If the initial nft_transfer call is part of a call chain originating from a call to ft_transfer_call on a fungible token, Bob's payment will be refunded and no assets will change hands.

Technical calls

Using near-cli notation for consistency:

    near call nft nft_transfer '{
      "receiver_id": "bob",
      "token_id": "1",
      "approval_id": 3,
    }' --accountId bazaar --depositYocto 1

6. Revoke one

Alice revokes Market's approval for this token.

Technical calls

Using near-cli:

    near call nft nft_revoke '{
      "account_id": "market",
      "token_id": "1",
    }' --accountId alice --depositYocto 1

Note that market will not get a cross-contract call in this case. The implementors of the Market app should implement cron-type functionality to intermittently check that Market still has the access they expect.

7. Revoke all

Alice revokes all approval for this token.

Technical calls

Using near-cli:

    near call nft nft_revoke_all '{
      "token_id": "1",
    }' --accountId alice --depositYocto 1

Again, note that no previous approvers will get cross-contract calls in this case.

Reference-level explanation

The Token structure returned by nft_token must include an approved_account_ids field, which is a map of account IDs to approval IDs. Using TypeScript's Record type notation:

type Token = {
   token_id: string,
   owner_id: string,
+  approved_account_ids: Record<string, number>,
 }

Example token data:

{
  "token_id": "1",
  "owner_id": "alice.near",
  "approved_account_ids": {
    "bob.near": 1,
    "carol.near": 2,
  }
}

In Rust, the standard library HashMap is the recommended type for the approvals field, though any map may be used.

 pub struct Token = {
   pub id: String,
   pub owner_id: String,
+  pub approvals: std::collections::HashMap<String, u64>,
 }

What is an "approval ID"?

This is a unique number given to each approval that allows well-intentioned marketplaces or other 3rd-party NFT resellers to avoid a race condition. The race condition occurs when:

A token is listed in two marketplaces, which are both saved to the token as approved accounts.
One marketplace sells the token, which clears the approved accounts.
The new owner sells back to the original owner.
The original owner approves the token for the second marketplace again to list at a new price. But for some reason the second marketplace still lists the token at the previous price and is unaware of the transfers happening.
The second marketplace, operating from old information, attempts to again sell the token at the old price.

Note that while this describes an honest mistake, the possibility of such a bug can also be taken advantage of by malicious parties via front-running.

To avoid this possibility, the NFT contract generates a unique approval ID each time it approves an account. Then when calling nft_transfer or nft_transfer_call, the approved account passes approval_id with this value to make sure the underlying state of the token hasn't changed from what the approved account expects.

Keeping with the example above, say the initial approval of the second marketplace generated the following approved_account_ids data:

{
  "token_id": "1",
  "owner_id": "alice.near",
  "approved_account_ids": {
    "marketplace_1.near": 1,
    "marketplace_2.near": 2,
  }
}

But after the transfers and re-approval described above, the token might have approved_account_ids as:

{
  "token_id": "1",
  "owner_id": "alice.near",
  "approved_account_ids": {
    "marketplace_2.near": 3,
  }
}

The marketplace then tries to call nft_transfer, passing outdated information:

# oops!
near call nft-contract.near nft_transfer '{ "approval_id": 2 }'

Interface

The NFT contract must implement the following methods:

/******************/
/* CHANGE METHODS */
/******************/

// Add an approved account for a specific token.
//
// Requirements
// * Caller of the method must attach a deposit of at least 1 yoctoⓃ for
//   security purposes
// * Contract MAY require caller to attach larger deposit, to cover cost of
//   storing approver data
// * Contract MUST panic if called by someone other than token owner
// * Contract MUST panic if addition would cause `nft_revoke_all` to exceed
//   single-block gas limit. See below for more info.
// * Contract MUST increment approval ID even if re-approving an account
// * If successfully approved or if had already been approved, and if `msg` is
//   present, contract MUST call `nft_on_approve` on `account_id`. See
//   `nft_on_approve` description below for details.
//
// Arguments:
// * `token_id`: the token for which to add an approval
// * `account_id`: the account to add to `approved_account_ids`
// * `msg`: optional string to be passed to `nft_on_approve`
//
// Returns void, if no `msg` given. Otherwise, returns promise call to
// `nft_on_approve`, which can resolve with whatever it wants.
function nft_approve(
  token_id: TokenId,
  account_id: string,
  msg: string|null,
): void|Promise<any> {}

// Revoke an approved account for a specific token.
//
// Requirements
// * Caller of the method must attach a deposit of 1 yoctoⓃ for security
//   purposes
// * If contract requires >1yN deposit on `nft_approve`, contract
//   MUST refund associated storage deposit when owner revokes approval
// * Contract MUST panic if called by someone other than token owner
//
// Arguments:
// * `token_id`: the token for which to revoke an approval
// * `account_id`: the account to remove from `approved_account_ids`
function nft_revoke(
  token_id: string,
  account_id: string
) {}

// Revoke all approved accounts for a specific token.
//
// Requirements
// * Caller of the method must attach a deposit of 1 yoctoⓃ for security
//   purposes
// * If contract requires >1yN deposit on `nft_approve`, contract
//   MUST refund all associated storage deposit when owner revokes approved_account_ids
// * Contract MUST panic if called by someone other than token owner
//
// Arguments:
// * `token_id`: the token with approved_account_ids to revoke
function nft_revoke_all(token_id: string) {}

/****************/
/* VIEW METHODS */
/****************/

// Check if a token is approved for transfer by a given account, optionally
// checking an approval_id
//
// Arguments:
// * `token_id`: the token for which to revoke an approval
// * `approved_account_id`: the account to check the existence of in `approved_account_ids`
// * `approval_id`: an optional approval ID to check against current approval ID for given account
//
// Returns:
// if `approval_id` given, `true` if `approved_account_id` is approved with given `approval_id`
// otherwise, `true` if `approved_account_id` is in list of approved accounts
function nft_is_approved(
  token_id: string,
  approved_account_id: string,
  approval_id: number|null
): boolean {}

Why must `nft_approve` panic if `nft_revoke_all` would fail later?

In the description of nft_approve above, it states:

Contract MUST panic if addition would cause `nft_revoke_all` to exceed
single-block gas limit.

What does this mean?

First, it's useful to understand what we mean by "single-block gas limit". This refers to the hard cap on gas per block at the protocol layer. This number will increase over time.

Removing data from a contract uses gas, so if an NFT had a large enough number of approved_account_ids, nft_revoke_all would fail, because calling it would exceed the maximum gas.

Contracts must prevent this by capping the number of approved_account_ids for a given token. However, it is up to contract authors to determine a sensible cap for their contract (and the single block gas limit at the time they deploy). Since contract implementations can vary, some implementations will be able to support a larger number of approved_account_ids than others, even with the same maximum gas per block.

Contract authors may choose to set a cap of something small and safe like 10 approved_account_ids, or they could dynamically calculate whether a new approval would break future calls to nft_revoke_all. But every contract MUST ensure that they never break the functionality of nft_revoke_all.

Approved Account Contract Interface

If a contract that gets approved to transfer NFTs wants to, it can implement nft_on_approve to update its own state when granted approval for a token:

// Respond to notification that contract has been granted approval for a token.
//
// Notes
// * Contract knows the token contract ID from `predecessor_account_id`
//
// Arguments:
// * `token_id`: the token to which this contract has been granted approval
// * `owner_id`: the owner of the token
// * `approval_id`: the approval ID stored by NFT contract for this approval.
//   Expected to be a number within the 2^53 limit representable by JSON.
// * `msg`: specifies information needed by the approved contract in order to
//    handle the approval. Can indicate both a function to call and the
//    parameters to pass to that function.
function nft_on_approve(
  token_id: TokenId,
  owner_id: string,
  approval_id: number,
  msg: string,
) {}

Note that the NFT contract will fire-and-forget this call, ignoring any return values or errors generated. This means that even if the approved account does not have a contract or does not implement nft_on_approve, the approval will still work correctly from the point of view of the NFT contract.

Further note that there is no parallel nft_on_revoke when revoking either a single approval or when revoking all. This is partially because scheduling many nft_on_revoke calls when revoking all approved_account_ids could incur prohibitive gas fees. Apps and contracts which cache NFT approved_account_ids can therefore not rely on having up-to-date information, and should periodically refresh their caches. Since this will be the necessary reality for dealing with nft_revoke_all, there is no reason to complicate nft_revoke with an nft_on_revoke call.

No incurred cost for core NFT behavior

NFT contracts should be implemented in a way to avoid extra gas fees for serialization & deserialization of approved_account_ids for calls to nft_* methods other than nft_token. See near-contract-standards implementation of ft_metadata using LazyOption as a reference example.

Errata

2022-02-03: updated Token struct field names. id was changed to token_id and approvals was changed to approved_account_ids. This is to be consistent with current implementations of the standard and the rust SDK docs.

Approval Management

NEP-178​

Summary​

Motivation​

Example Scenarios​

1. Simple Approval​

2. Approval with cross-contract call​

3. Approval with cross-contract call, edge case​

4. Approval IDs​

5. Approval IDs, edge case​

6. Revoke one​

7. Revoke all​

Reference-level explanation​

What is an "approval ID"?​

Interface​

Why must nft_approve panic if nft_revoke_all would fail later?​

Approved Account Contract Interface​

No incurred cost for core NFT behavior​

Errata​

NEP-178

Summary

Motivation

Example Scenarios

1. Simple Approval

2. Approval with cross-contract call

3. Approval with cross-contract call, edge case

4. Approval IDs

5. Approval IDs, edge case

6. Revoke one

7. Revoke all

Reference-level explanation

What is an "approval ID"?

Interface

Why must `nft_approve` panic if `nft_revoke_all` would fail later?

Approved Account Contract Interface

No incurred cost for core NFT behavior

Errata