# What is an Alpha? Most fundamentally, the Alpha is a role granted by the [Atomist](/build-on-fusion/architecture-overview/what-is-an-atomist.md). You can think of the Alpha as the active management function of a fund. The privilege that an Alpha has is preparing and executing transactions on behalf of the Fusion Vault. Alphas can be smart contracts, AI agents, EOAs, or automated services that hold their private keys. Each vault can have multiple Alphas so it is important that, if multiple Alphas are connected to a particular vault, they should be coordinated so that they don't interfere with one another. The transactions an Alpha can perform are defined and limited by the vault's strategy. An Alpha can only execute transactions for which the necessary fuses have been connected to the vault. This ensures that an Alpha cannot misuse the vault's assets. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.ipor.io/build-on-fusion/architecture-overview/what-is-an-alpha.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.