Managing Targets

A target is a smart contract protected by ACE. After deploying your ACE-compatible contract, you register it as a target under a PolicyEngine. Once registered, you can configure the default policy result and attach policies to its functions via protections.

Register a target

After deploying your contract, register it as a target with a POST request. Provide the contract name, type, protected methods, and on-chain addresses:

curl -X POST https://ace.api.chain.link/v1/targets \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Apikey <API_KEY>" \
  -d '{
    "title": "My ERC-20 Token",
    "description": "Production ERC-20 token with compliance enforcement",
    "policy_engine_id": "<POLICY_ENGINE_ID>",
    "protected_methods": [
      "transfer(address,uint256)",
      "transferFrom(address,address,uint256)"
      #[any other methods you want to protect]
    ],
    "desired_default_allow": true,
    "metadata": {"contract_type": "ERC-20"},
    "onchain_targets": [
      {
        "chain_selector": "16015286601757825753",
        "address": "0xYourContractAddressOnSepolia"
      },
      {
        "chain_selector": "3478487238524512106",
        "address": "0xYourContractAddressOnArbitrumSepolia"
      },
      #[any other chains where your contract is deployed]
    ]
  }'

Default allow behavior

The default policy result controls what happens when a transaction passes through the entire policy chain and no policy explicitly returns Allow or Reject (i.e., every policy returns Continue). This is configured per target contract via the desired_default_allow field:

• true (default) — The transaction is allowed. This is appropriate when you want policies to act as blockers (reject specific cases), and everything else passes through.
• false — The transaction is rejected. This is appropriate for allowlist-style enforcement where only explicitly approved transactions proceed.

For more on how policy evaluation ordering works, see Policy Ordering & Composition.

Change the default policy result

curl -X PUT https://ace.api.chain.link/v1/targets/<TARGET_ID> \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Apikey <API_KEY>" \
  -d '{
    "title": "My ERC-20 Token",
    "description": "Production ERC-20 token with compliance enforcement",
    "protected_methods": [
      "transfer(address,uint256)",
      "transferFrom(address,address,uint256)"
    ],
    "desired_default_allow": false,
    "metadata": {"contract_type": "ERC-20"}
  }'

View targets

curl https://ace.api.chain.link/v1/targets \
  -H "Authorization: Apikey <API_KEY>"

curl https://ace.api.chain.link/v1/targets/<TARGET_ID> \
  -H "Authorization: Apikey <API_KEY>"

Update a target

You can update a target's name, description, contract type, protected methods, default allow behavior, and on-chain addresses.

curl -X PUT https://ace.api.chain.link/v1/targets/<TARGET_ID> \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Apikey <API_KEY>" \
  -d '{
    "title": "My ERC-20 Token (Updated)",
    "description": "Updated description",
    "protected_methods": [
      "transfer(address,uint256)",
      "transferFrom(address,address,uint256)",
      "mint(address,uint256)"
    ],
    "desired_default_allow": true,
    "metadata": {"contract_type": "ERC-20"}
  }'

Link targets

When you deploy your ACE-compatible contract on a new chain, the control plane detects it automatically and creates a separate detected target (titled "unknown target"). Rather than managing each chain deployment as its own target, you can merge detected targets into an existing target to keep a single multi-chain target with all its on-chain addresses in one place.

Conditions

A detected target can be merged (linked) into an existing target when:

• The detected target was auto-discovered — it still has the default "unknown target" title.
• The detected target has at least one on-chain address.
• A valid destination target exists in the same policy engine: it must be a different target, already named, and deployed on a different chain than the source (no shared chain selectors).

If no valid destination exists, the detected target cannot be merged — you can only rename it via Edit details.

How it works

Merging transfers the on-chain addresses from the source target(s) to the destination target, then archives the sources. After the merge, the destination target contains all chain deployments and any protections remain on the destination.

curl -X POST "https://ace.api.chain.link/v1/targets/<DESTINATION_TARGET_ID>/merge" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Apikey <API_KEY>" \
  -d '{
    "source_target_ids": ["<SOURCE_TARGET_ID>"]
  }'

Archive a target

Archiving a target removes it from active use. All target protections associated with the target must be archived first.

curl -X PATCH https://ace.api.chain.link/v1/targets/<TARGET_ID> \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Apikey <API_KEY>" \
  -d '{
    "status": "archived"
  }'

Related pages

• Making Your Contract ACE-Compatible — how to integrate PolicyProtected into your contract
• Managing Policy Engines — create the engine your target will use
• Managing Policies — create policy instances to attach to your target
• Protecting Target Functions — attach policies to specific functions on your target
• Coordinator API Reference — full API schema