All terms
Temporary limited permissions so an app can act without prompting you constantly.
A session key is a scoped, expiring permission granted to an application. It can perform specific actions, up to specific limits, for a specific period, without asking you to sign each one.
This is what makes onchain games playable. Without it, every move would trigger a wallet popup, which nobody tolerates for more than a minute.
A game might get a session key valid for two hours, limited to in game item actions, with no ability to move your tokens.
That session keys are just a convenience. They are a delegated permission with a scope and a lifetime, and a badly scoped one is a standing approval you forgot you granted. The convenience is real and so is the surface.
Common questions
What are session keys for?
Are session keys risky?
Where this comes up on the site
The guides that actually use this word, rather than a list of everything we have written.
Where to go next
More web3 terms
Want this explained out loud?
Some of these land faster in conversation than in writing. Sessions are one to one and you can ask anything, including the things that feel too obvious to ask.