Altitude separates personal authorization from company approval. First, a member uses their signing factors to authorize an action. Then the workspace rules determine whether enough authorized members have approved it and who can submit it for execution.
Two signing factors authorize one member. They do not mean two employees have approved a payment. A new workspace requires only one member approval. To require two people, increase the workspace approval threshold and assign approvals to different people.
Your three signing factors
Each member's personal account is backed by a Squads smart account that requires two of three signing factors. You can view them in Settings › My account › Authentication & signing.
Signing factor | How it works |
Primary email | Uses a signing key accessed through Turnkey. A signing key is an electronic credential for authorizing actions. |
Passkeys | Digital signing credentials that sign directly onchain without a key provider intermediary. All registered passkeys count as one factor. |
Recovery method | Uses either a recovery email with a key accessed through Privy, or a recovery YubiKey, a physical security key that signs directly onchain. |
Choosing YubiKey recovery removes the Privy recovery key and replaces it with the YubiKey. It does not change the primary email key accessed through Turnkey or your passkeys.
An account can contain more than three keys, but it still has three signing factors. Adding another passkey gives you another way to use the passkey factor. Two passkeys alone cannot authorize an action. A compromised device or identity account may expose more than one usable factor, so protect the factors independently.
See Passkeys in Altitude.
Login and authorization sessions
Signing in opens an application login session. It can refresh, up to a maximum lifetime of 24 hours. Signing in does not automatically create an authorization session.
A separate authorization session starts when you sign an action using the required factors. It lasts 30 minutes and does not refresh automatically. During that session, further approvals do not require another email code or passkey interaction. After it expires, you must authorize again with the required factors.
Your company can configure supported authorization-session settings.
See Sign in to Altitude.
Recovery and changes to your team
If you lose your passkeys, you can replace them using your primary email and chosen recovery method. Other workspace members do not need to recover your personal account. The workspace approval threshold still applies afterward.
Personal signing keys and workspace members can be replaced without moving stablecoin balances or changing the underlying onchain vault addresses, which are the addresses where the account holds its assets.
If the sole member loses every usable combination of two signing factors, Altitude offers no exceptional recovery process. Protect primary and recovery email accounts with multi-factor authentication, and keep recovery access usable if your normal signing device is lost.
Register backup passkeys on separately accessible devices or compatible hardware keys. A FIDO2-capable YubiKey can store a passkey. A YubiKey registered under Passkeys belongs to that factor; it does not add a factor or change your Recovery method. Review recovery arrangements before replacing a device or when an employee changes roles or leaves.