Delegation

Delegation is used to authorize actions on behalf of another user.

Vocabulary

• Delegator: The user that is delegating actions to another user. (The user that owns the key)
• Delegate: The user that is being delegated actions. (The user that the key is pointing to)

The actor Field on Public Keys

Users's public_key property contains a field called actor. This field contains the URI to the delegator user, which is used to authorize actions on behalf of the delegate user.

This means that the delegator user can sign requests with their private key, and any implementations should consider the delegate user as equivalent to the delegator user.

Implementation Details

Any actions or entities created by the delegate should be attributed to the delegator user in clients transparently to end-users (e.g. showing the delegator user's name and avatar). This allows for a form of "consensual impersonation" that is authorized by the delegators and delegates.

This is useful as a way to centralize all of a user's many "alt accounts" into a single, unified feed.