| title | description | sidebar_position | slug |
|---|---|---|---|
Entitlements |
Modeling entitlements for a system |
1 |
/modeling/advanced/entitlements |
import { AuthzModelSnippetViewer, CardBox, CheckRequestViewer, DocumentationNotice, Playground, ProductConcept, ProductName, ProductNameFormat, WriteRequestViewer, } from '@components/Docs';
This tutorial explains how to model entitlements for a platform like GitHub using .
- How to model an entitlement use case in
- How to start with a given set of requirements and scenarios and iterate on the model until those requirements are met
In order to understand this guide correctly you must be familiar with some concepts and know how to develop the things that we will list below.
It would be helpful to have an understanding of some concepts of before you start.
You need to know how to create relationships between objects and how that might affect a user's relationships to those objects. Learn more →
Used here to indicate that members of an org are subscriber members of the plan the org is subscriber to, and subscriber members of a plan get access to all the plan's features.
You need to know how to disallow granting direct relation to an object and requiring the user to have a relation with another object that would imply a relation with the first one. Learn more →
Used here to indicate that "access" to a feature cannot be directly granted to a user, but is implied through the users organization subscribing to a plan that offers that feature.
- Some
- Modeling Language
In many product offerings, the features are behind multiple tiers. In this tutorial, you will build an authorization model for a subset of GitHub's entitlements (detailed below) using . You will use some scenarios to validate the model.
At their core, entitlements is just asking: does a user X have access to feature Y? In GitHub's case for example, they have a concept called "Draft Pull Requests". Once the user loads the Pull Request page, the frontend needs to know whether it can show the "Draft Pull Request" option, as in it needs to know: "Does the current user have access to feature Draft Pull Request?".
Note: For brevity, this tutorial will not model all of GitHub entitlements. Instead, it will focus on modeling for the scenarios outlined below
You will model an entitlement system similar to GitHub's, focusing on a few scenarios.
GitHub has 3 plans: "Free", "Team" and "Enterprise", with each of them offering several features. The higher-priced plans include all the features of the lower priced plans. You will be focusing on a subset of the features offered.
A summary of GitHub's entitlement system:
- Free
- Issues
- Team
- Everything from the free plan
- Draft Pull Requests
- Enterprise
- Everything from the team plan
- SAML Single Sign-On
Use the following scenarios to be able to validate whether the model of the requirements is correct.
-
Take these three organizations
- Alpha Beta Gamma (
alpha), a subscriber on the free plan - Bayer Water Supplies (
bayer), a subscriber on the team plan - Cups and Dishes (
cups), a subscriber on the enterprise plan
- Alpha Beta Gamma (
-
Take these three users
- Anne, member of Alpha Beta Gamma
- Beth, member of Bayer Water Supplies
- Charles, member of Cups and Dishes
By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to query with queries like:
- Anne has access to Issues (expecting
yes) - Anne has access to Draft Pull Requests (expecting
no) - Anne has access to Single Sign-on (expecting
no) - Beth has access to Issues (expecting
yes) - Beth has access to Draft Pull Requests (expecting
yes) - Beth has access to Single Sign-on (expecting
no) - Charles has access to Issues (expecting
yes) - Charles has access to Draft Pull Requests (expecting
yes) - Charles has access to Single Sign-on (expecting
yes)
In this tutorial you are going to take a different approach to previous tutorials. You will start with a simple , add to represent some sample scenarios, and iterate until those scenarios return the results you expect.
In the scenarios outlined above, you have organizations, plans and features.
Similar to the example above, start with a basic listing of the types and their relations:
- A
featurehas aplanassociated to it, we'll call the relation between themassociated_plan - A
planhas an organization as asubscriberto it - An
organizationhas users asmembers
<AuthzModelSnippetViewer configuration={{ schema_version: '1.1', type_definitions: [ { type: 'user', }, { type: 'feature', relations: { associated_plan: { this: {}, }, }, metadata: { relations: { associated_plan: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'plan' }] }, }, }, }, { type: 'plan', relations: { subscriber: { this: {}, }, }, metadata: { relations: { subscriber: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'organization' }] }, }, }, }, { type: 'organization', relations: { member: { this: {}, }, }, metadata: { relations: { member: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'user' }] }, }, }, }, ], }} />
Now you can add the relationship tuples to represent these relationships mentioned in the requirements and scenarios sections:
The relations between the features and plans are as follows:
<WriteRequestViewer relationshipTuples={[ { _description: 'the free plan is the associated plan of the issues feature', user: 'plan:free', // the free plan relation: 'associated_plan', // is the associated plan object: 'feature:issues', // of the issues feature }, { _description: 'the team plan is the associated plan of the issues feature', user: 'plan:team', // the team plan relation: 'associated_plan', // is the associated plan object: 'feature:issues', // of the issues feature }, { _description: 'the team plan is the associated plan of the draft pull requests feature', user: 'plan:team', // the team plan relation: 'associated_plan', // is the associated plan object: 'feature:draft_prs', // of the draft pull requests feature }, { _description: 'the enterprise plan is the associated plan of the issues feature', user: 'plan:enterprise', // the enterprise plan relation: 'associated_plan', // is the associated plan object: 'feature:issues', // of the issues feature }, { _description: 'the enterprise plan is the associated plan of the draft pull requests feature', user: 'plan:enterprise', // the enterprise plan relation: 'associated_plan', // is the associated plan object: 'feature:draft_prs', // of the draft pull requests feature }, { _description: 'the enterprise plan is the associated plan of the SAML Single Sign-on feature', user: 'plan:enterprise', // the enterprise plan relation: 'associated_plan', // is the associated plan object: 'feature:sso', // of the SAML Single Sign-on feature }, ]} />
The relations between the plans and the organizations are as follows:
<WriteRequestViewer relationshipTuples={[ { _description: 'the Alpha Beta Gamma organization is a subscriber of the free plan', user: 'organization:alpha', // the Alpha Beta Gamma organization relation: 'subscriber', // is a subscriber object: 'plan:free', // of the free plan }, { _description: 'the Bayer Water Supplies organization is a subscriber of the team plan', user: 'organization:bayer', // the Bayer Water Supplies organization relation: 'subscriber', // is a subscriber object: 'plan:team', // of the team plan }, { _description: 'the Cups and Dishes organization is a subscriber of the enterprise plan', user: 'organization:cups', // the Cups and Dishes organization relation: 'subscriber', // is a subscriber object: 'plan:enterprise', // of the enterprise plan }, ]} />
The relations between the organizations and the users are as follows:
<WriteRequestViewer relationshipTuples={[ { _description: 'anne is a member of the Alpha Beta Gamma organization', user: 'user:anne', // Anne relation: 'member', // is a member object: 'organization:alpha', // of the Alpha Beta Gamma organization }, { _description: 'beth is a member of the Bayer Water Supplies', user: 'user:beth', // Beth relation: 'member', // is a member object: 'organization:bayer', // of the Bayer Water Supplies }, { _description: 'charles is a member of the Cups and Dishes organization', user: 'user:charles', // Charles relation: 'member', // is a member object: 'organization:cups', // of the Cups and Dishes organization }, ]} />
So far you have given a representation of the current state of your system's relationships. You will keep iterating and updating the authorization model until the results of the queries match what you expect.
:::caution
In production, it is highly recommended to use unique, immutable identifiers. Names are used in this article to make it easier to read and follow. For example, the relationship tuple indicating that anne is a member of organization:alpha could be written as:
- user: user:2b4840f2-7c9c-42c8-9329-911002051524
- relation: member
- object: project:52e529c6-c571-4d5c-b78a-bc574cf98b54
:::
Now that you have some data, you can start using it to ask is ${USER} related to ${OBJECT} as ${RELATION}?
First, you will if anne is a member of organization:alpha. This is one of the relationship tuples you previously added, you will make sure can detect a relation in this case.
<CheckRequestViewer user={'user:anne'} relation={'member'} object={'organization:alpha'} allowed={true} />
Querying for relationship tuples that you fed into earlier should work, try a few before proceeding to make sure everything is working well.
<CheckRequestViewer user={'user:anne'} relation={'member'} object={'organization:bayer'} allowed={false} /> <CheckRequestViewer user={'organization:bayer'} relation={'subscriber'} object={'plan:team'} allowed={true} /> <CheckRequestViewer user={'plan:free'} relation={'associated_plan'} object={'feature:issues'} allowed={true} />
You are working towards returning the correct answer when you query whether anne has access to feature:issues. It won't work yet, but you will keep updating your configuration to reach that goal.
To start, try to run that query on is anne related to feature:issues as access?
<CheckRequestViewer user={'user:anne'} relation={'access'} object={'feature:issues'} />
The service is returning that the query tuple is invalid. That is because you are asking for relation as access, but that relation is not in the configuration of the feature type!
Add it now. Like so:
<AuthzModelSnippetViewer configuration={{ type: 'feature', relations: { associated_plan: { this: {}, }, access: { this: {}, }, }, metadata: { relations: { associated_plan: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'plan' }] }, access: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'user' }] }, }, }, }} skipVersion={true} />
:::info
access was added to the configuration of the feature .
:::
:::note
In this tutorial, you will find the phrases .
A direct relationship R between user X and object Y means the relationship tuple (user=X, relation=R, object=Y) exists, and the authorization model for that relation allows this direct relationship (by use of direct relationship type restrictions).
An implied relationship R exists between user X and object Y if user X is related to an object Z that is in direct or implied relationship with object Y, and the authorization model allows it.
:::
The resulting updated configuration would be:
<AuthzModelSnippetViewer configuration={{ schema_version: '1.1', type_definitions: [ { type: 'user', }, { type: 'feature', relations: { associated_plan: { this: {}, }, access: { this: {}, }, }, metadata: { relations: { associated_plan: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'plan' }] }, access: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'user' }] }, }, }, }, { type: 'plan', relations: { subscriber: { this: {}, }, }, metadata: { relations: { subscriber: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'organization' }] }, }, }, }, { type: 'organization', relations: { member: { this: {}, }, }, metadata: { relations: { subscriber: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'user' }] }, }, }, }, ], }} />
Now we can ask the following query: is anne related to feature:issues as access? again.
<CheckRequestViewer user={'user:anne'} relation={'access'} object={'feature:issues'} allowed={false} />
So far so good. understood your query, but said that no exists. That is because according to the configuration provided so far, there is no access relation between anne and feature:issues.
We can also try to query is organization:alpha related to feature:issues as access? and we see that there is no relationship.
<CheckRequestViewer user={'organization:alpha'} relation={'access'} object={'feature:issues'} allowed={false} />
If you have already completed some of the other tutorials you might have encountered the modeling pattern of parent-child objects which is modeled as such:
<AuthzModelSnippetViewer configuration={{ type: 'resource', relations: { viewer: { tupleToUserset: { tupleset: { relation: 'parent', }, computedUserset: { relation: 'all_objects_viewer', }, }, }, }, }} skipVersion={true} />
:::info
With this, when asked to check a user's viewer relationship with the object, will:
- Read all relationship tuples of users related to this particular object as relation
parent - For each relationship tuple, return all usersets that have
all_objects_viewerrelation to the objects in those relationship tuples - If the user is in any of those usersets, return yes, as the user is a
vieweron this object. In other words, users related asall_objects_viewerto any of this object'sparentsare related asviewerto this object.
:::
If you want to give all subscribers on a plan access to a feature, you can do it like so:
<AuthzModelSnippetViewer configuration={{ type: 'feature', relations: { associated_plan: { this: {}, }, access: { union: { child: [ { this: {}, }, { tupleToUserset: { tupleset: { relation: 'associated_plan', }, computedUserset: { relation: 'subscriber', }, }, }, ], }, }, }, metadata: { relations: { associated_plan: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'plan' }] }, access: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'user' }], }, }, }, }} skipVersion={true} />
:::info
Users related to feature as access are the union of (any of):
- the set of users with a direct
accessrelation - the set of users related to the
associated_planassubscriber(the feature's associated plans' subscribers)
So everyone who has direct access, as well as the subscribers of the associated plan :::
That would mean that in order for an object to have an access relation to a feature y, there needs to be either:
- a via a relationship tuple:
e.g.
{ "user": "user:x", "relation": "access", "object": "feature:y" } - a subscriber relationship with another object related to x associated_plan:
e.g.
{ "user": "user:x", "relation": "subscriber", "object": "plan:z" } { "user": "plan:z", "relation": "associated_plan", "object": "feature:y" }
That brings you close. That will allow you to grant organizations access to the feature (as organizations have a subscriber relation with the plan).
One way forward would be to add a direct access relation between a user and a feature e.g. { "user": "anne", "relation": "access", "object": "feature:y" } whenever the organization anne is subscribed to a plan, or the organization anne is in subscribes to a new plan.
But there are several downsides to this:
- Your application layer now needs to worry about computing this relationship. Instead of letting figure this all out, the app layer needs to do the checks whenever a user is being added or removed
- If an organization changes its subscription, your application layer has to loop through all the users and update their
accessrelationships to features accordingly
Later in this tutorial, you will remove the possibility of having a direct access relation completely, but for now you will make sure the changes to the store you have made so far are working.
Replace all the existing code you had previously with the updated authorization model from the below snippet.
<AuthzModelSnippetViewer configuration={{ schema_version: '1.1', type_definitions: [ { type: 'user', }, { type: 'feature', relations: { associated_plan: { this: {}, }, access: { union: { child: [ { this: {}, }, { tupleToUserset: { tupleset: { relation: 'associated_plan', }, computedUserset: { relation: 'subscriber', }, }, }, ], }, }, }, metadata: { relations: { associated_plan: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'plan' }] }, access: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'user' }], }, }, }, }, { type: 'plan', relations: { subscriber: { this: {}, }, }, metadata: { relations: { subscriber: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'organization' }] }, }, }, }, { type: 'organization', relations: { member: { this: {}, }, }, metadata: { relations: { member: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'user' }] }, }, }, }, ], }} />
Now we can ask following query: is organization:alpha related to feature:issues as access? again.
<CheckRequestViewer user={'organization:alpha'} relation={'access'} object={'feature:issues'} allowed={true} />
You will notice that now did find a relation, as organization:alpha is a subscriber to plan:free which has an associated_plan relation to feature:issues. From that and the authorization model you updated above, deduced that organization:alpha has an implied access relation to feature:issues.
That is good, but you want to be able to ask is anne related to feature:issues as access?, not is organization:alpha related to feature:issues as access?. As in, you want the subscriber members to have access to the feature, not the subscriber itself.
In order to do that, you will add a relation on the plan, that indicates that all members of an organization subscribed to it, have a subscriber_member relation to the plan. And you can modify the change you did above to give implied access to the subscriber_member instead of the subscriber. Like so:
<AuthzModelSnippetViewer
description={Notice that \subscriber` has been updated to `subscriber_member` in the `access` relation of the `feature` type.
Under the `plan` type, in order for someone to have a `subscriber_member` relation to the plan, they have to be related as a `member` to the object related as a `subscriber` to the plan (as in they have to be a member of on of the plan's subscribers).} configuration={{ schema_version: '1.1', type_definitions: [ { type: 'user', }, { type: 'feature', relations: { associated_plan: { this: {}, }, access: { union: { child: [ { this: {}, }, { tupleToUserset: { tupleset: { relation: 'associated_plan', }, computedUserset: { relation: 'subscriber_member', // this has been updated from subscribertosubscriber_member}, }, }, ], }, }, }, metadata: { relations: { associated_plan: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'plan' }] }, access: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'user' }], }, }, }, }, { type: 'plan', relations: { subscriber: { this: {}, }, subscriber_member: { // in order for someone to have asubscriber_memberrelation to the plan, they have to tupleToUserset: { tupleset: { // be related to the object related as asubscriberto the plan relation: 'subscriber', }, computedUserset: { // as amember`
relation: 'member',
},
},
},
},
metadata: {
relations: {
subscriber: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'organization' }] },
},
},
},
{
type: 'organization',
relations: {
member: {
this: {},
},
},
metadata: {
relations: {
member: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'user' }] },
},
},
},
],
}}
/>
:::info
Notice that subscriber has been updated to subscriber_member in the access relation of the feature type.
Under the plan type, in order for someone to have a subscriber_member relation to the plan, they have to be related as a member to the object related as a subscriber to the plan (as in they have to be a member of on of the plan's subscribers).
:::
Now ask the following query: is anne related to feature:issues as access?
<CheckRequestViewer user={'user:anne'} relation={'access'} object={'feature:issues'} allowed={true} />
So far, with just a authorization model, and the initial relationship tuples indicating the relations you know, you configured to give you the correct response.
Earlier on, the idea of not allowing a direct access relation between a user and a feature was discussed, e.g. adding a relationship tuple like { "user": "user:anne", "relation": "access", "object": "feature:y" }. You will remove it now.
To disallow a direct relationship, you need to remove the direct relationship type restriction. The following snippet:
<AuthzModelSnippetViewer configuration={{ type: 'feature', relations: { associated_plan: { this: {}, }, access: { union: { child: [ { this: {}, }, { tupleToUserset: { tupleset: { relation: 'associated_plan', }, computedUserset: { relation: 'subscriber_member', }, }, }, ], }, }, }, metadata: { relations: { associated_plan: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'plan' }] }, access: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'user' }], }, }, }, }} skipVersion={true} />
becomes
<AuthzModelSnippetViewer configuration={{ type: 'feature', relations: { associated_plan: { this: {}, }, access: { tupleToUserset: { tupleset: { relation: 'associated_plan', }, computedUserset: { relation: 'subscriber_member', }, }, }, }, metadata: { relations: { associated_plan: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'plan' }] }, }, }, }} skipVersion={true} />
With this change, even if your app layer added the following relationship tuple:
{ "user": "user:anne", "relation": "access", "object": feature:issues }
a subsequent check for is anne related to feature:issues as access? would return no relation. The only way for a relation to exist is if the following three relationship tuples do:
{ "user": "user:anne", "relation": "member", "object": "organization:z" }{ "user": "organization:z", "relation": "subscriber", "object": "plan:y" }{ "user": "plan:y", "relation": "associated_plan", "object": "feature:issues" }
Ensure that your authorization model matches the one below
<AuthzModelSnippetViewer configuration={{ type_definitions: [ { type: 'user', }, { type: 'feature', relations: { associated_plan: { this: {}, }, access: { tupleToUserset: { tupleset: { relation: 'associated_plan', }, computedUserset: { relation: 'subscriber_member', }, }, }, }, metadata: { relations: { associated_plan: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'plan' }] }, }, }, }, { type: 'plan', relations: { subscriber: { this: {}, }, subscriber_member: { tupleToUserset: { tupleset: { relation: 'subscriber', }, computedUserset: { relation: 'member', }, }, }, }, metadata: { relations: { subscriber: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'organization' }] }, }, }, }, { type: 'organization', relations: { member: { this: {}, }, }, metadata: { relations: { member: { directly_related_user_types: [{ type: 'user' }] }, }, }, }, ], }} />
You will now verify that the configuration is correct by running checks for all the scenarios mentioned at the beginning of the tutorial:
- Anne has access to Issues (expecting
yes) - Anne has access to Draft Pull Requests (expecting
no) - Anne has access to Single Sign-on (expecting
no) - Beth has access to Issues (expecting
yes) - Beth has access to Draft Pull Requests (expecting
yes) - Beth has access to Single Sign-on (expecting
no) - Charles has access to Issues (expecting
yes) - Charles has access to Draft Pull Requests (expecting
yes) - Charles has access to Single Sign-on (expecting
yes)
<CheckRequestViewer user={'user:anne'} relation={'access'} object={'feature:issues'} allowed={true} />
Try to verify for the other user, object and relation combinations as listed below.
| User | Object | Relation | Query | Relation? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
anne |
feature:issues |
access |
is anne related to feature:issues as access? |
Yes |
anne |
feature:draft_prs |
access |
is anne related to feature:draft_prs as access? |
No |
anne |
feature:sso |
access |
is anne related to feature:sso as access? |
No |
beth |
feature:issues |
access |
is beth related to feature:issues as access? |
Yes |
beth |
feature:draft_prs |
access |
is beth related to feature:draft_prs as access? |
Yes |
beth |
feature:sso |
access |
is beth related to feature:sso as access? |
No |
charles |
feature:issues |
access |
is charles related to feature:issues as access? |
Yes |
charles |
feature:draft_prs |
access |
is charles related to feature:draft_prs as access? |
Yes |
charles |
feature:sso |
access |
is charles related to feature:sso as access? |
Yes |
In this tutorial, you learned:
- to model entitlements for a system in
- how to start with a set of requirements and scenarios and iterate on the authorization model until the checks match the expected scenarios
- how to model parent-child relationships to indicate that a user having a relationship with a certain object implies having a relationship with another object in
- how to use the union operator condition to indicate multiple possible paths for a relationship between two objects to be computed
- using direct relationship type restrictions in a authorization model, and how to block direct relationships by removing it
Upcoming tutorials will dive deeper into , introducing concepts that will improve on the model you built today, and tackling different permission systems, with other relations and requirements that need to be met.