User Permissions

small and powerful authorization library

Features	Install	Getting started	API Reference

DEMO

Features

✔ Small & Fast - The fastest and smallest compared to: casbin, casl, role-acl, rbac

✔ Write in typescript

✔ Supports node.js & web

✔ Supports MongoDB like conditions $in, $exists, $gte, $gt, $lte...

✔ Friendly API
e.g new Permission().actions('read').resources('posts').fields(['title', 'body'])

✔ Supports Template - you can specify dynamic conditions
e.g new Permission().resources('posts').conditions('{"creator": "" }')

✔ Ability to Filter/Validate data by permission
e.g appAbilities.check('read', 'posts').validateData(data)

Install

npm i user-permissions

Getting started

1. Define permissions

   import { Permissions, Permission } from 'user-permissions';
    
   const appPermissions = new Permissions([
     // Everyone has permission to read the title and body of the posts
     new Permission()
       .actions('read')
       .resources('posts')
       .fields(['title', 'body']),
     // Only logged in users have permission to manage their posts
     new Permission()
       .resources('posts')
       .conditions('{"creator": "{{ user.id }}" }')
       .user(true),
     // Only paying users are allow to read private posts
     new Permission()
       .actions('read')
       .resources('posts')
       .fields(['info'])
       .user({ isPay: true }),
   ]);

2. Check permissions

   let res;
    
   /*
   |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   | Example 1: anonymous user try to read posts
   |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   |
   */
    
   res = await appPermissions.check('read', 'posts', { user: null });
    
   if (!res.allow) {
     console.error('You are not allow to read posts');
   } else {
     const query = res.fields.allowAll
       ? { $select: res.fields.getFieldsToSelect() }
       : {};
    
     console.log('User allow to read posts', { query });
   }
    
   /*
   |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   | Example 2: Logged in user try to create a new post
   |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   |
   */
    
   const user = { id: 'a1ad' };
   const values = { creator: 'bdjd', title: 'lorem' };
    
   res = await appPermissions.check('create', 'posts', { user }); // res.allow = true
    
   if (!res.allow) {
     console.error('You are not allow to create posts');
   } else {
     const validateData = res.validateData(values);
     if (!validateData.valid) {
       console.error(validateData.message);
     } else {
       console.log('Create the post', values);
     }
   }
    
   /*
   |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   | Example 3: Logged in user try to read posts
   |            example of using filter data
   |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   |
   */
    
   res = await appPermissions.check('read', 'posts', { user: null }); // res.allow = true
    
   if (!res.allow) {
     console.error('You are not allow to read posts');
   } else {
     //const data = await fetchDataFromDb();
     const data = [
       { title: 'lor', body: 'pos', privateFields: '1' },
       { title: 'lor1', body: 'pos1', privateFields: '1' },
       { title: 'lor2', body: 'pos2', privateFields: '1' },
       { title: 'lor3', body: 'pos3', privateFields: '1' },
     ];
    
     const response = res.filterData(data); // This will filter all fields except title and body
    
     console.log('Posts response', response);
   }

API Reference

Define permissions

Define permissions to your app by creating a new instance of Permissions class.

const appPermissions = new Permissions([new Permission(),...])

Permissions accept a collection of Permission class.

Permission can be implement in two ways:

1. using the Chainable api e.g new Permission().actions('read').resources('posts')

2. using the constructors
   * using the constructor is useful when you saving the Permissions in your DB

   e.g new Permission({actions: 'read', ...})

Permission

actions

• info: The actions that you want to allow
  • to allow all pass '*'
• type: string | string[]
• examples:
  • new Permission().actions(['create','update'])
  • new Permission().actions('*')
  • new Permission({actions: ['create'],...})

resources

• info: The resources that you want to allow
  • to allow all pass '*'
• type: string | string[]
• examples:
  • new Permission().resources(['posts','products'])
  • new Permission().resources('posts')
  • new Permission({resources: 'posts',...})

roles

• info: Define for what group of users this permission is applied by roles
• type: string | string[]
• examples:
  • new Permission().roles(['admin'])
  • new Permission().roles('subscribers')
  • new Permission({roles: 'admin',...})

conditions

• info: An object of conditions to restrict which records this permission applies to

• type: string | object

  • when it a string, it must be a valid stringify in this way we can use a template

• examples:

  • new Permission().conditions({active: true})
  • new Permission().conditions('{"user":"{{user.id}}"}')
  • new Permission({conditions: '{"organization":"{{user.organization}}"}',...})

  🌟 This is a powerful way to protect your records
  When we check permissions we find all the permissions that allow the request and collect
  all the conditions into the check response.
  we used this conditions in the filterData&validateData utils and also you can convert the conditions
  to a fetch query.
  this library used siftthat is a "tiny library for using MongoDB queries to filter data in Javascript"
  you can use any MongoDB operator in the conditions like $in, $nin, $exists, $gte..

  /*
  |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  | For example
  |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  | an organization_admin try to find all his users
  | your app includes a number of organization
  | and you want to serve only users in his organization
  */
   
  // App Permissions
  import { Permissions, Permission } from 'user-permissions';
   
  const appPermissions = new Permissions([
    new Permission()
      .resources('users')
      .conditions('{"organizationId": "{{ user.organizationId}}" }')
      .roles('organization_admin'),
  ]);
   
  // some where in your app
  router.find('/users', async (req, res) => {
    // req.user = {id:'a1', roles: ['organization_admin'], organizationId: 'akdi1' }
    const permissionCheck = await appPermissions.check('read', 'users', {
      user: req.user,
      roles: req.user.roles,
    });
    if (!permissionCheck.allow) {
      throw new Error(permissionCheck.message);
    }
    // Build query
    const query = {};
    if (permissionCheck.conditions) {
      query['$or'] = permissionCheck.conditions;
    }
    // query['$or'] = [{organizationId: 'akdi1'}]
    const users = await User.find(query);
    res.json(users);
  });

fields

• info: The fields to allow/denied
  • You can use Glob notation to define allow or denied attributes
    • allow : ['firstName', 'lastName']
    • denied: ['-password']
    • mixed: ['title', 'body', 'creator', '-creator.password']
• type: string | string[]
• examples:
  • new Permission().fields(['firstName', 'lastName'])
  • new Permission().fields('title')
  • new Permission({fields: ['-password'],...})

user

• info: Define for what group of users this permission is applied by conditions on the user record
  • you can user MongoDb operators, we used sift to implement this
• type: boolean | object
• examples:
  • new Permission().user(true) // all logged in users
  • new Permission().user({ vip: true }) // only vip users
  • new Permission().user({ creditCard: { $exists: false } }) // only user with a credit card
  • new Permission({start: { $gt: 5 },...}) // only user with more then 5 stars

when

• info:Define an async function that returns a Boolean value to apply or not the permission
• type: function
• examples:
  • new Permission().when(context => context.user && context.user.age > 40) // apply only when the we find user in the context the older then 40
  • new Permission().when(someAsyncFunction)

meta

• info: You can add any data that you want to meta When we check permissions we find all the meta from the permissions that allow the request and collect them into the check response.
• type: any
• examples:
  • new Permission().meta({populate: 'comments'}) // now you can allow the user to populate the comments fields

check permissions

There are two ways to check permissions

• hasPermission

  • When to use: When you need only to check permissions
  • Example: await appPermissions.hasPermission('read', 'posts', context)
  • Response: Boolean value

• check

  • When to use: When you want to build a fetch query from the rules, to expose only fields that user need to read

  • Example: await appPermissions.check('read', 'posts', context)

  • Response: object with this properties:

    • action

      • type: string
      • The action we checked for permission.
      • e.g create

    • resource

      • type: string
      • The resource we checked for permission.
      • e.g posts

    • allow

      • type: Boolean
      • user allow or not allow to make this request

    • message

      • type: null | string
      • when allow is false then the default message is : You are not authorized to ${action} ${resources}

    • conditions

      • type: null | object[

    • fields

      • type: object
        • fields properties
          • allowAll - Boolean - true when at least one permission is allow all fields with out ant condition
          • allow - string[] - collection of all the fields from the permission with empty conditions
          • allowedByCondition - object[] - collection of all the fields from the permission with conditions, each item in the array will by {fields: string[], condition: object}
          • getFieldsToSelect - function - this is all the fields that user allow by one of the permissions

    • meta:

      • type: null | any[],

    • filterData

      • type: (data: object | object[]) => object | object[] | null
      • pass object or object[] and the function return you data without the fields that user not allow
      • return null when allow is false

    • validateData

      • type: (data: object | object[]) => { valid: Boolean; message?: string }

    • filterDataIsRequired

      • type: Boolean

      • true when not all the fields are allow and some of the fields are allow with conditions for example: you define app with this permissions

        1. new Permission().fields('privateNotes').conditions('{"user":"{{user.id}}"}')
        2. new Permission().fields(['title','body])

        in this case any user can read title and body but user can read only his privateNotes
        after you fetch all posts and select 'title,body,privateNotes' you need to remove privateNotes
        from all the records that not belong to user
        in this case filterDataIsRequired will be true
        user filterData to remove fields by permissions