Glossary

Terms used across the Payflow docs, each with a one- or two-sentence definition and a link to the page that explains it in depth. Everything here is grounded in the v0.2.0 contracts and the surrounding pages.

Core Payflow terms

  • Mandate — the standing authorization a subscriber signs once: who pays, who is paid, how much, and how often. It is the object everything else in Payflow exists to create, settle, or terminate. See the mandate lifecycle.
  • Charge — one collection of a mandate when it comes due. At most one charge is collectable per period, and only while the mandate is Active. See the mandate lifecycle.
  • Plan — a merchant-published price, billing period, and token, held in the plan registry. The terms are copied into the mandate at subscribe time and never re-read, which is why a merchant cannot reprice an existing subscriber. See the mandate lifecycle and the contract reference.
  • Plan registry — the public contract that stores plans; immutable except for an on/off switch. See the contract reference.
  • Keeper — the actor that submits a charge when a mandate falls due. Charging is permissionless, so this can be Payflow’s own keeper, the merchant, the subscriber, or anyone — the mandate already carries the full authorization. See the mandate lifecycle.
  • Vault — the custody contract that holds a subscriber’s funds and pays out settled charges. The subscriber can withdraw (drain) it at any time, which is how they starve a mandate. Custody is a liability, discussed on the trust model.
  • Token — the asset a mandate pays in, XLM or a SEP-41 token. Amounts are always in that token’s smallest unit.
  • Period — the billing interval. Scheduling uses now + period so a missed charge can never build up a backlogged burst. See the mandate lifecycle.
  • Mandate state — Active, Paused, Cancelled, or Completed; the last two are terminal and cannot be reversed. See the mandate lifecycle.
  • next_charge / last_charge — the two scheduling timestamps a settled charge updates. See the mandate lifecycle.
  • fee_bps — the protocol fee, in basis points, frozen into the mandate at subscribe time. A subscriber always settles at the rate they signed up. See economics.
  • Subscription contract — the contract that checks the schedule, debits the vault, pays the merchant, and takes the protocol fee. See the contract reference.
  • Subscription admin — the key that sets the protocol fee, capped at 10%. A change applies only to mandates opened afterwards. See the trust model.
  • Vault admin — the key that can repoint set_subscription at a different contract; the main custody risk in the design. See the trust model.
  • MIN_PERIOD — a 60-second floor on the billing period, set so validator timestamp skew cannot meaningfully accelerate billing. See the trust model.
  • SEP-41 — the token standard the vault debits; every code path writes state before transferring, so a hostile token can fail a charge but not steal. See the trust model.

Stellar primitives

  • Stroop — the smallest unit of XLM; 1 XLM = 10 000 000 stroops. All Payflow amounts are integer stroops, never JSON numbers. See economics.
  • Base fee — the Stellar transaction fee (100 stroops) paid by whoever submits a charge. This settlement cost is why Payflow is a Stellar product. See economics.
  • Basis points (bps) — hundredths of a percent; the protocol fee is amount × fee_bps ÷ 10 000, capped at MAX_FEE_BPS = 1000 (10%). See economics.
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