Caliber

A Caliber is a strategy's chain-local execution engine, the contract from which capital is actually deployed into external protocols. Where the Machine is the vault and the accountant, the Caliber is the operator's workbench.

A strategy has one Caliber per chain it operates on. The Caliber on the Hub Chain sits beside the Machine, and additional Calibers on Spoke Chains extend the strategy elsewhere. Every transaction the Operator executes against an external protocol is sent by a Caliber, which is the on-chain identity that holds positions and interacts with DeFi.

What a Caliber does

• Executes Instructions on its embedded MakinaVM to open, resize, and close positions in external protocols.
• Holds and manages base tokens: the priceable assets positions are built from.
• Swaps tokens through approved routers, harvests external rewards, and can take flash loans for temporary liquidity.
• Independently accounts for everything it holds, in accounting-token terms.
• On Spoke Chains, sends and receives capital to and from the Machine through its Caliber Mailbox using Makina's cross-chain liquidity infrastructure.

Accounting token and base tokens

A Caliber works with a curated set of base tokens: the only tokens it may hold directly. Each base token must be priceable against the accounting token through the Oracle Registry, which is what lets the Caliber value everything it holds. Positions can only be built from, and unwound into, base tokens, and swaps can only produce base tokens. This guarantees every asset the Caliber touches can be valued, and therefore that loss checks and accounting always work.

The accounting token is a special base token: the unit the Machine uses (or an asset 1:1 redeemable for it), in which the Caliber denominates all value. It is registered as a base token automatically and can never be removed.

Bounded by design

A Caliber gives the Operator enormous reach (almost any protocol can be integrated), but every action is constrained:

• only pre-approved instructions may run;
• swaps may only output approved base tokens;
• each position-management action and swap is subject to a loss cap and a cooldown;
• in Recovery Mode, positions may only be reduced and swaps may only move toward the accounting token.

These guardrails are what make discretionary, cross-protocol management safe. The rest of this section covers each capability in turn.