# Risk Controls

A vault is a real Pacifica account and is subject to the same liquidation engine as any other account ([Liquidations](/docs/trading-on-pacifica/liquidations.md)). On top of that, vault-specific controls bound what the manager can do, when the engine forcibly halts trading, and how the manager is required to remain aligned with depositors.

This page collects those controls in one place. The economic split during PnL events is described separately in [Profit & Loss](/docs/vaults/profit-and-loss.md).

### Trading constraints on the manager

Every order placed on a vault is checked against the vault's trading configuration in addition to the standard exchange checks.

| Constraint              | Behavior                                                                                                                                      |
| ----------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `whitelist`             | If set, the order's symbol must be in the whitelist. If unset, all listed symbols are permitted.                                              |
| `blacklist`             | If set, the order's symbol must not be in the blacklist. The blacklist is applied after the whitelist; a symbol in both lists is blocked.     |
| `max_leverages[symbol]` | If set, the order's selected leverage on that symbol must not exceed this cap. If unset, the symbol's exchange-default max leverage applies.  |
| `trading_halt`          | If true, all order submissions on the vault are rejected. Set automatically by the liquidation worker; cleared by manager top-up (see below). |

Constraint violations are returned as errors at order submission time and do not consume any state. They are checked uniformly for both manual orders and orders placed via an [agent key](/docs/api-documentation/api/signing/api-agent-keys.md).

`whitelist`, `blacklist`, and `max_leverages` can be updated by the creator at any time. Updates take effect on the next order. There is no notice period for depositors. See [Managing a Vault → Mutability](/docs/vaults/managing-a-vault.md#mutability).

### Manager balance portion

The manager's balance portion is the manager's share of the vault's total non-position USDC equity:

```
manager_balance_portion = manager_balance / (manager_balance + lp_balance)
```

Two thresholds in the vault config govern how this ratio is enforced:

| Threshold                             | Configured by       | Used at                                                                                                      |
| ------------------------------------- | ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `manager_min_balance_portion`         | Creator (immutable) | Required when claiming the manager seat on a fresh vault. Required to lift a trading halt after liquidation. |
| `manager_liquidation_balance_portion` | Creator (immutable) | When the live ratio falls below this threshold, the engine halts trading and liquidates open positions.      |

`manager_liquidation_balance_portion` must be strictly less than `manager_min_balance_portion` if both are set. The gap between the two acts as a buffer: the manager has room to operate without being one bad tick away from a halt, but is required to top up past the higher threshold to resume trading.

If neither portion is configured, the engine does not auto-halt the vault on manager-balance grounds, and the LP is exposed to a manager who can in principle hold zero capital in the vault.


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