---
title: "Zodiac (Gnosis Guild)"
url: "https://caper.network/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/frameworks/zodiac"
updated: 2026-09-03
license: CC-BY-4.0
license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Zodiac (Gnosis Guild)

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| **Category** | Execution · [Safe](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/treasury/safe) modules · module standard |
| **Built by** | [Gnosis Guild](https://www.gnosisguild.org/) (2022); open standard, LGPL-3.0+ |
| **What it is** | A library of composable contracts that turn a [Safe](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/treasury/safe) from a plain multisig into a programmable, DAO-governed account |
| **Architecture** | **Avatar** · **Module** · **Modifier** · **Guard** — each an interface, freely composable |
| **Key modules** | Reality Module (SafeSnap) · Optimistic Governor · Delay · Roles · Exit |
| **Source** | [github.com/gnosisguild/zodiac](https://github.com/gnosisguild/zodiac) · [zodiac.eco](https://www.zodiac.eco/) |
| **Related** | [Safe](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/treasury/safe) · [Snapshot](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/voting/snapshot) · [Exit rights](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/rage-quit-and-exit-rights) · [Tooling stack](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/dao-tooling-overview) |

**Zodiac** is the missing piece between how most DAOs _vote_ and how they _act_. A community runs its polls on [Snapshot](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/voting/snapshot) — gasless, off-chain, and non-binding — while its money sits in a [Safe](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/treasury/safe) multisig that only a handful of signers can move. Between the two is a gap: something has to take a passed vote and actually execute the transaction, and for years that "something" was a small human multisig trusted to faithfully carry out the community's decision. Zodiac, an open contract standard built by [Gnosis Guild](https://www.gnosisguild.org/) and first released in 2022, is the toolkit that closes that gap — letting a Safe execute the outcome of a vote directly, on trust-minimised rails, without handing a multisig the keys to the treasury.

## The Avatar / Module / Modifier / Guard standard

Zodiac's power is that it is a **standard**, not a single product. Per the [Zodiac specification](https://github.com/gnosisguild/zodiac/blob/master/README.md), it defines four composable roles around a programmable account:

- **Avatar** — the account that holds the assets and executes transactions (a [Safe](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/treasury/safe) is the canonical avatar). It implements the `IAvatar` interface, whose `execTransactionFromModule` function is how everything else moves it.
- **Module** — a contract the avatar _enables_ that carries decision-making logic and can tell the avatar what to execute. A DAO can enable several at once.
- **Modifier** — a contract that sits _between_ a module and the avatar and alters the module's behaviour — for example forcing a mandatory time delay on everything the module tries to do. A modifier looks like an avatar to the module above it, so modules and modifiers chain.
- **Guard** — a contract enabled on a module that runs pre- and post-checks on each transaction, constraining what it is allowed to do.

Because each role is just an interface, the pieces snap together like an expansion pack: you can chain a _Delay_ modifier behind a _Reality_ module behind a Safe, and the Safe neither knows nor cares which combination it is. That composability — rather than the monolithic, all-or-nothing design of a full framework like early [Aragon](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/frameworks/aragon) — is the whole thesis.

## Reality Module (SafeSnap): executing a Snapshot vote

The flagship module — originally shipped as **SafeSnap** and now the [Reality Module](https://github.com/gnosisguild/zodiac-module-reality) — is what lets an off-chain [Snapshot](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/voting/snapshot) vote move an on-chain treasury. When a community drafts a Snapshot proposal, it can attach an array of transaction payloads to be executed if the vote passes. The outcome is then posted as a question to the [Reality.eth](https://reality.eth.limo/) optimistic oracle: anyone can assert "this proposal passed," a bond backs the assertion, and unless someone bonds a counter-claim within a challenge window, the result finalises. Disputes can escalate to [Kleros](https://kleros.io/) arbitration. Once the answer resolves and a cooldown elapses, the transactions become executable by anyone through the Safe — the multisig is out of the loop entirely. The oracle, not a trusted signer, is what asserts the off-chain vote's result on-chain, which is why this pattern is called **optimistic governance**. A sibling module, the [Optimistic Governor](/wiki/daos/infrastructure/uma), does the same job against [UMA](/wiki/daos/infrastructure/uma)'s optimistic oracle instead of Reality.eth.

## The rest of the kit: Delay, Roles, and Exit

The other modules address the everyday failure modes of running an on-chain organisation:

- **Delay Modifier** — enforces a mandatory cooldown between when a transaction is proposed and when it can execute, giving members a window to react (or exit) before anything moves. It turns any module into a timelocked one.
- **Roles Modifier** — grants scoped permissions, so a module or address can be allowed to call _only_ specific functions on specific contracts (e.g. "this contributor may stake treasury assets in Aave but may not withdraw them"). It is the least-privilege layer for delegated treasury operations.
- **Exit Module** — lets any holder of a designated token redeem it at any time for a _proportional share_ of the avatar's assets, generalising [MolochDAO](/wiki/daos/public-goods/molochdao)'s `rageQuit()` into a bolt-on any Safe can install ([zodiac-module-exit](https://github.com/gnosisguild/zodiac-module-exit), Exit App launched April 2022). It is the clearest on-chain expression of a member's [right to exit](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/rage-quit-and-exit-rights): dissent by withdrawal rather than by vote.

## Where it sits in the stack

Zodiac occupies the **execution and permissioning layer** of the [DAO tooling stack](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/dao-tooling-overview) — the connective tissue between the voting layer ([Snapshot](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/voting/snapshot)), the custody layer ([Safe](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/treasury/safe)), and the binding on-chain governance that tools like [Tally / Cactus](/wiki/dao-governance/tooling/voting/tally) front. Its appeal to large DAOs is that it lets them keep cheap, high-participation off-chain voting _and_ get trust-minimised execution, without adopting a heavyweight on-chain [Governor](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/fundamentals/dao-governance-models) for every decision. The trade-off is assembly: a Zodiac-based DAO is a set of modules a team wires together and must configure correctly, and a misconfigured module or oracle is its own attack surface — the price of composability is that no single vendor hands you a finished, audited whole.

## How Caper approaches this

Zodiac exists because, in the mainstream stack, voting, custody, execution and exit are _separate contracts_ a DAO must bolt together — and each seam is a place where a multisig, an oracle, or a misconfiguration can sit between the members and their treasury. [Caper](/wiki/foundations/what-is-a-caper) takes the opposite route: those layers are one contract. A caper's [proposals](/wiki/governance/proposals), [votes](/wiki/governance/voting) and [execution](/wiki/governance/execution) are native to the protocol, so there is no SafeSnap-style bridge to trust — a passed proposal _is_ the authorisation to execute.

The contrast is sharpest at the **Exit Module**. Zodiac's exit is an optional add-on that returns a share strictly proportional to a redeemable token's balance. In Caper, exit is not a module you choose to install — every member who has voted or traded holds it by construction, and the share is weighted by the _same earned metric that sets voting power_. A member redeeming caper tokens t together with their soulbound votes v receives a treasury fraction of `(t · v) / (V · T)` — the identical `compute_vote_weight` formula used when they vote (verified against `contracts/common/src/lib.rs`). The vote tokens are soulbound and non-transferable, so exit weight is earned participation, not just a token you can buy on the way out. The right to leave with your fair share isn't a feature a caper's founders remembered to enable — it's the same primitive as the right to be heard.

## References

- Gnosis Guild, [Zodiac — composable tooling for onchain entities](https://github.com/gnosisguild/zodiac) (standard & README).
- Gnosis Guild, [Reality Module](https://github.com/gnosisguild/zodiac-module-reality) and [Exit Module](https://github.com/gnosisguild/zodiac-module-exit) repositories.
- Snapshot, [SafeSnap / Reality plugin documentation](https://docs.snapshot.box/v1-interface/plugins/safesnap-reality).
- Reality.eth, [optimistic oracle](https://reality.eth.limo/); UMA, [Optimistic Governor (oSnap)](https://docs.uma.xyz/resources/osnap) — retired 15 December 2025.
- Gnosis Guild, [zodiac.eco](https://www.zodiac.eco/).