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Lit Chipotle is built on three composable layers that each handle a distinct concern. Understanding the separation makes it easier to reason about security, auditability, and where your own code fits in. The throughline: your keys’ authority lives on-chain, and an attested TEE enforces it by reading the chain. We call this Chain Secured — on-chain authority, signing at the speed of an API call.

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The Three Layers

TEE Enclave (Phala / dstack) The enclave holds the root key and performs all sensitive operations: key derivation, authorization checking, and sandboxed Lit Action execution. Nothing that touches key material ever leaves the enclave. The TEE also acts as a convenience relay — it can sign and submit on-chain management transactions on your behalf after verifying your API key scopes. On-Chain Permissions (Base) All authorization state lives on-chain in a set of smart contracts: an Account contract that registers the owner address, an API Key Registry mapping key addresses to scopes, a PKP Registry of wallet derivation path IDs, and Groups that bind PKPs to permitted action CIDs. The TEE reads these contracts to decide whether to execute a request. You can update them either through the TEE relay or by submitting transactions directly from an EOA or multisig. Lit Actions (IPFS) Lit Actions are immutable JavaScript programs stored on IPFS and referenced by content ID (CID). They are not owned by anyone — they are public, reusable, and content-addressed, similar to npm packages. The TEE fetches the action by CID at execution time and runs it inside a sandboxed JS environment that has access to the derived key material.

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API mode vs ChainSecured mode

Who owns the account is a configuration choice, not a fork in the code. In API mode, a Lit-managed credential owns the account and relays your admin writes — the fastest way to start. In ChainSecured mode, a wallet you control (an EOA or Safe) owns the account on-chain and signs every change itself — fully self-custodied, with an on-chain audit trail. Both run the same contracts and the same Lit Actions; only account ownership and how writes are signed differ. See API Mode vs ChainSecured Mode for the side-by-side and the migration path.

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Further Reading