Llama

• Name: Llama
• URL: https://github.com/llamaxyz/llama
• Category: onchain governance framework / executable access-control infrastructure / modular action-approval system
• Tags: ethereum-ecosystem
• Summary: Llama is an onchain action-governance framework. The useful point is the action pipeline: who can create, approve, queue, guard, and execute specific calls under explicit strategies.
• What it does:
  • Uses non-transferable policy NFTs to represent governance and access-control positions
  • Assigns roles that determine who can create, approve, and disapprove actions
  • Binds permissions to specific (target, selector, strategy) tuples rather than to broad symbolic titles alone
  • Manages an action lifecycle in which operations are created, approved, disapproved, queued, and executed
  • Supports modular strategy contracts for different quorum and approval semantics
  • Exposes factories, logic contracts, and strategy logic deployed across multiple EVM chains
• Key claims:
  • The official repo describes Llama as an onchain governance and access-control framework for smart contracts that uses non-transferable NFTs, programmatic control of funds, and modular strategies for action-execution rules
  • The LlamaPolicy contract states that each non-transferable token functions as a policy for a policyholder and carries roles for creating, approving, and disapproving actions
  • The same policy contract shows that permissioning is attached to role + permission IDs derived from target/selector/strategy data, which is a much more granular governance model than simple token voting
  • The LlamaCore contract explicitly defines governance as an action process from creation to execution, with events for action creation, queueing, execution, approvals, disapprovals, strategy authorization, and action guards
  • The core contract also tracks authorized strategies, scripts, account logics, strategy logics, and action guards, suggesting that Llama is meant to be a reusable governance constitution layer rather than a one-off app
  • The deployment table in the public README lists factory and logic contracts on Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum, Base, Polygon, Blast, and Zora, which indicates repeated production-oriented deployment
  • The published strategy set includes several quorum styles such as relative quantity, relative holder, relative unique holder, and absolute quorum, showing that governance logic is designed to be swapped rather than standardized around one voting rule
• Whitepaper: No classic whitepaper or litepaper surfaced in this pass. The strongest primary materials were the official GitHub repos and the core contract source; see ../whitepapers/llama-primary-sources-2026-05-07.md.
• Sources:
  • https://github.com/llamaxyz/llama
  • https://raw.githubusercontent.com/llamaxyz/llama/main/README.md
  • https://github.com/llamaxyz/llama-docs
  • https://raw.githubusercontent.com/llamaxyz/llama-docs/main/README.md
  • https://raw.githubusercontent.com/llamaxyz/llama/main/src/LlamaCore.sol
  • https://raw.githubusercontent.com/llamaxyz/llama/main/src/LlamaPolicy.sol

Internal linkages

• Closest role-and-authority peer where organizational positions themselves become the execution surface: hats-protocol.

• Signer and custody substrate that many governance stacks still sit on underneath richer approval logic: safe.

• Governance-system contrast with different constitutional assumptions: aragon.

• The useful question is whether extra action granularity adds real constitutional clarity or just a denser admin graph.

• Last reviewed: 2026-05-30 UTC