Generalised authorisations

EIPS/EIP-X-authorisations-nickjohnson.md

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+## Preamble
+
+    EIP: <to be assigned>
+    Title: Generalised authorisations
+    Author: Nick Johnson <[email protected]>
+    Type: Standard track
+    Category: ERC
+    Status: Draft
+    Created: 2018-03-12
+
+## Abstract
+This EIP specifies a generic authorisation mechanism, which can be used to implement a variety of authorisation patterns, replacing approvals in ERC20, operators in ERC777, and bespoke authorisation patterns in a variety of other types of contract.
+
+## Motivation
+Smart contracts commonly need to provide an interface that allows a third-party caller to perform actions on behalf of a user. The most common example of this is token authorisations/operators, but other similar situations exist throughout the ecosystem, including for instance authorising operations on ENS domains. Typically each standard reinvents this system for themselves, leading to a large number of incompatible implementations of the same basic pattern. Here, we propose a generic method usable by all such contracts.
+
+The pattern implemented here is inspired by [ds-auth](https://github.com/dapphub/ds-auth) and by OAuth.
+
+## Specification
+The generalised authorisation interface is implemented as a metadata provider, as specified in EIP-X-metadata-nickjohnson. The following mandatory function is implemented:
+
+```
+function canCall(address owner, address caller, address callee, bytes4 func) view returns(bool);
+```
+
+Where:
+ - `owner` is the owner of the resource. If approved the function call is treated as being made by this address.
+ - `caller` is the address making the present call.
+ - `callee` is the address of the contract being called.
+ - `func` is the 4-byte signature of the function being called.
+
+For example, suppose Alice authorises Bob to transfer tokens on her behalf. When Bob does so, Alice is the `owner`, Bob is the `caller`, the token contract is the `callee`, and the function signature for the transfer function is `func`.
+
+As this standard uses EIP-X-metadata-nickjohnson, the authorisation flow is as follows:
+
+ 1. The callee contract fetches the provider for the `owner` address from the metadata registry contract, which resides at a well-known address.
+ 2. The callee contract calls `canCall()` with the parameters described above. If the function returns false, the callee reverts execution.
+
+Commonly, providers will wish to supply a standardised interface for users to set and unset their own authorisations. They SHOULD implement the following interface:
+
+```
+function authoriseCaller(address owner, address caller, address callee, bytes4 func);
+function revokeCaller(address owner, address caller, address callee, bytes4 func);
+```
+
+Arguments have the same meaning as in `canCall`. Implementing contracts MUST ensure that `msg.sender` is authorised to call `authoriseCaller` or `revokeCaller` on behalf of `owner`; this MUST always be true if `owner == msg.sender`. Implementing contracts SHOULD use the standard specified here to determine if other callers may provide authorisations as well.
+
+Implementing contracts SHOULD treat a `func` of 0 as authorising calls to all functions on `callee`. If `authorised` is `false` and `func` is 0, contracts need only clear any blanket authorisation; individual authorisations may remain in effect.
+
+## Backwards Compatibility
+There are no backwards compatibility concerns.
+
+## Implementation
+Example implementation TBD.
+
+## Copyright
+Copyright and related rights waived via [CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).