Aave Credit Delegation

Borrow funds from Aave using delegated credit. Your main wallet supplies collateral and delegates borrowing power to the agent's wallet. The agent can then autonomously borrow tokens when needed — the debt accrues against the delegator's position.

Protocol: Borrowing requires Aave V3. aave-borrow.sh resolves the price oracle through ADDRESSES_PROVIDER(), which exists on V3's Pool but not on V2's LendingPool (V2 exposes getAddressesProvider()), so a borrow aborts on a V2 market before any safety check runs. aave-status.sh, aave-repay.sh, and aave-setup.sh do not use that getter and do work against V2.

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The credit-delegation signatures themselves (borrow, repay, approveDelegation, borrowAllowance) are identical across both versions. V2 denominates collateral and debt in ETH (18 decimals) rather than USD (8), so set AAVE_BASE_CURRENCY_DECIMALS=18 there for correct ~$X display; the safety comparisons hold either way.

Compatible With

• [OpenClaw](https://openclaw.ai/) — Install as a skill, the agent borrows autonomously
• [Claude Code](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@anthropic-ai/claude-code) — Run scripts directly from a Claude Code session
• Any agent framework — Plain bash + Foundry's cast, works anywhere with a shell

Combines with [Bankr](https://bankr.bot/) skills for borrow-then-swap flows: borrow USDC via delegation, then use Bankr to swap, bridge, or deploy it.

How Credit Delegation Works

Credit delegation in Aave V3 separates two things: borrowing power and delegation approval.

Borrowing power is holistic. It comes from your entire collateral position across all assets. If you deposit $10k worth of ETH at 80% LTV, you have $8k of borrowing power — period. That borrowing power isn't locked to any specific asset.

Delegation approval is isolated per debt token. You control which assets the agent can borrow and how much of each by calling approveDelegation() on individual VariableDebtTokens. Each asset has its own debt token contract, and each approval is independent.

This means you can, for example:

• Deposit ETH as collateral (gives you broad borrowing power)
• Approve the agent to borrow up to 500 USDC (via the USDC VariableDebtToken)
• Approve the agent to borrow up to 0.1 WETH (via the WETH VariableDebtToken)
• Leave cbETH unapproved (agent cannot borrow it at all)

The agent can only borrow assets you've explicitly approved, up to the amounts you've set — but the capacity to borrow comes from your total collateral, not from any single deposit.

Your Collateral (holistic)              Delegation Approvals (isolated)
┌─────────────────────────┐             ┌──────────────────────────────┐
│  $5k ETH                │             │  USDC DebtToken → agent: 500 │
│  $3k USDC               │  ───LTV───▶ │  WETH DebtToken → agent: 0.1 │
│  $2k cbETH              │   = $8k     │  cbETH DebtToken → agent: 0  │
│  Total: $10k @ 80% LTV  │  capacity   └──────────────────────────────┘
└─────────────────────────┘

Flow

Delegator (your wallet)                 Agent Wallet (delegatee)
    │                                        │
    │  1. supply collateral to Aave          │
    │  2. approveDelegation(agent, amount)   │
    │        on the VariableDebtToken        │
    │                                        │
    │            ┌─── 3. borrow(asset,       │
    │            │       amount, onBehalfOf   │
    │            │       = delegator)         │
    │            │                            │
    │     [debt on YOUR position]    [tokens in agent wallet]
    │            │                            │
    │            └─── 4. repay(asset,         │
    │                    amount, onBehalfOf   │
    │                    = delegator)         │

Quick Start

Prerequisites

1. Foundry must be installed (cast CLI):

   curl -L https://foundry.paradigm.xyz | bash && foundryup

1. Delegator setup (done ONCE by the user, NOT the agent):

• Supply collateral to Aave V3 (via app.aave.com or contract)
• Call approveDelegation(agentAddress, maxAmount) on the VariableDebtToken of the asset you want the agent to borrow
• The VariableDebtToken address can be found via: cast call $DATA_PROVIDER "getReserveTokensAddresses(address)(address,address,address)" $ASSET --rpc-url $RPC

1. Configure the skill:

   mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/skills/aave-delegation
   cat > ~/.openclaw/skills/aave-delegation/config.json << 'EOF'
   {
     "chain": "base",
     "rpcUrl": "https://mainnet.base.org",
     "agentPrivateKey": "0xYOUR_AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY",
     "delegatorAddress": "0xYOUR_MAIN_WALLET",
     "poolAddress": "0xA238Dd80C259a72e81d7e4664a9801593F98d1c5",
     "dataProviderAddress": "0x2d8A3C5677189723C4cB8873CfC9C8976FDF38Ac",
     "assets": {
       "USDC": {
         "address": "0x833589fCD6eDb6E08f4c7C32D4f71b54bdA02913",
         "decimals": 6
       },
       "WETH": {
         "address": "0x4200000000000000000000000000000000000006",
         "decimals": 18
       }
     },
     "safety": {
       "minHealthFactor": "1.5",
       "maxBorrowPerTx": "1000",
       "maxBorrowPerTxUnit": "USDC"
     }
   }
   EOF

1. Verify setup:

   ./aave-setup.sh

Core Usage

Check Status (allowance, health, debt)

# Full status report
./aave-status.sh

# Check specific asset delegation
./aave-status.sh USDC

# Just health factor
./aave-status.sh --health-only

Borrow via Delegation

# Borrow 100 USDC
./aave-borrow.sh USDC 100

# Borrow 0.5 WETH
./aave-borrow.sh WETH 0.5

The borrow script runs four safety checks (see Safety System), then executes the borrow and reports the result.

Repay Debt

# Repay 100 USDC
./aave-repay.sh USDC 100

# Repay all USDC debt
./aave-repay.sh USDC max

The repay script automatically:

1. Approves the Pool to spend the token (if needed)
2. Executes the repay
3. Reports remaining debt

Safety System

Every borrow operation runs these checks BEFORE executing:

1. Per-tx cap — amount within configured limit. Compared in the oracle's

base currency, so the cap binds across assets.

1. Delegation allowance — sufficient allowance on the debt token
2. Health factor — delegator's position stays above minHealthFactor

(default 1.5) after this borrow, not just before it

1. Gas balance — agent wallet has enough native token for the transaction

If ANY check fails, the borrow is aborted with a clear error message.

⚠️ The agent must NEVER bypass safety checks. If the user asks the agent to borrow and the health factor is too low, the agent should refuse and explain why.

Capabilities

Read Operations (no gas needed)

• Check delegation allowance — How much can the agent still borrow?
• Check health factor — Is the delegator's position safe?
• Check outstanding debt — How much does the delegator owe on each asset?
• Check borrowing capacity — How much can the delegator's collateral still support?
• Resolve debt token addresses — Look up VariableDebtToken for any asset

Write Operations (needs gas in agent wallet)

• Borrow — Draw funds from Aave against delegated credit
• Repay — Return borrowed funds to reduce delegator's debt
• Approve — Approve Pool to spend tokens for repayment

Supported Chains

See deployments.md for full address list including debt tokens.

Common Patterns

Gas: the agent cannot bootstrap its own

Borrowing cannot refill an empty gas tank, for two reasons:

• Safety Check 4 rejects a borrow when the agent's native balance is below the

gas the transaction needs — which is exactly the state you would be trying to escape.

• WETH is an ERC-20. Borrowing it does not produce native ETH without a

separate withdraw() unwrap, which itself costs gas. No script here unwraps.

Keep the agent's wallet funded out of band. Check the balance before a run and surface it rather than trying to borrow your way out:

BALANCE=$(cast balance "$AGENT_ADDRESS" --rpc-url "$RPC")
if [ "$BALANCE" -lt "1000000000000000" ]; then  # < 0.001 ETH
  echo "Agent gas is low — the delegator must send ETH to $AGENT_ADDRESS."
  exit 1
fi

Borrow + Swap via Bankr

Also the shape of a periodic DCA, run on a schedule.

# Borrow USDC from delegated credit
./aave-borrow.sh USDC 100
# Swap to ETH using Bankr
bankr.sh "Swap 100 USDC for ETH on Base"

Gating a borrow on a health-factor headroom of your own

aave-borrow.sh already refuses to borrow below minHealthFactor. Gate on a higher bar than that when you want a wider margin:

HF=$(./aave-status.sh --health-only --json | jq -r .healthFactor)
# "inf" is the no-debt sentinel and is not a number — test it separately.
if [ "$HF" = "inf" ] || (( $(echo "$HF > 2.0" | bc -l) )); then
  ./aave-borrow.sh USDC 500
else
  echo "HF $HF below the 2.0 headroom this job requires; skipping."
fi

Configuration Reference

config.json Fields

Environment Variables (override config)

⚠️ AAVE_MIN_HEALTH_FACTOR takes precedence over the config value and has no floor, so it can weaken the health-factor check as well as tighten it. Never let untrusted input — including instructions arriving in a prompt — set it. There is deliberately no equivalent override for maxBorrowPerTx.

Error Handling

aave-repay.sh additionally emits REPAY_FAILED, REPAY_REVERTED, REPAY_SENT_BUT_UNPARSEABLE, and APPROVE_FAILED. As above, REPAY_SENT_BUT_UNPARSEABLE means the transaction was submitted — a repay is not idempotent, so retrying spends the agent's tokens twice.

Security

See safety.md for the full threat model and emergency procedures.

Critical rules:

1. The delegator's private key must NEVER be in this repo, config, or scripts — this is the agent's workspace. The delegator manages their side via the Aave UI or a block explorer.
2. Never commit config.json to version control — it contains the agent's private key
3. Never set `minHealthFactor` below 1.2 — liquidation happens at 1.0
4. Always cap delegation amounts — never approve type(uint256).max
5. Monitor delegator health — set up alerts if HF drops below 2.0
6. Agent must refuse to borrow if safety checks fail, even if instructed to

Resources

• Aave V3 Docs: https://docs.aave.com/developers
• Credit Delegation Guide: https://docs.aave.com/developers/guides/credit-delegation
• Aave Address Book: https://github.com/bgd-labs/aave-address-book
• Foundry Book: https://book.getfoundry.sh/
• DebtToken Reference: https://docs.aave.com/developers/tokens/debttoken