Compose a request, read the decision

Idempotence

A repeated vote for the same cluster and term returns the identical decision. The node records what it granted and will not contradict itself, which is what makes it safe to retry on a flaky link.

Timeouts

Callers should treat any request exceeding 400 ms as failed and proceed as if the witness were unreachable. A late vote is worse than no vote.

Clock

Lease decisions carry an absolute expiry. If your clock differs from ours by more than 50 ms, the node says so in the response rather than silently issuing a lease you cannot honour.