[Feature Request]: [GSoC 2026] Managing the integrity of roles made by Terraform
- Dominant language
- Java
- Stars
- 8.7k
- Forks
- 4.7k
- Avg merge
- 1d 20h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 196
Description
### What would you like to happen?
Currently, the Apache Beam GCP infrastructure uses Terraform to manage IAM Custom Roles (e.g., beam_writer, beam_viewer). The deployment of these roles is handled by the .github/workflows/beam_Infrastructure_UsersPermissions.yml workflow, and the state is securely stored in a remote GCS backend (beam-terraform-infra-state).
There is currently no mechanism to guarantee the continuous integrity of these custom roles. If an administrator or a compromised account manually modifies a custom role directly in the Google Cloud Console (e.g., adding unauthorized permissions or deleting the role entirely), Terraform will not detect or correct this configuration drift until the next time a PR coincidentally updates the IAM files.
While our Python scripts (iam.py) audit user bindings on a daily schedule, the definitions of the custom roles themselves remain exposed to undetected out-of-band modifications.
### Issue Priority
Priority: 2 (default / most feature requests should be filed as P2)
### Issue Components
- [ ] Component: Python SDK
- [ ] Component: Java SDK
- [ ] Component: Go SDK
- [ ] Component: Typescript SDK
- [ ] Component: IO connector
- [x] Component: Beam YAML
- [ ] Component: Beam examples
- [ ] Component: Beam playground
- [ ] Component: Beam katas
- [ ] Component: Website
- [x] Component: Infrastructure
- [ ] Component: Spark Runner
- [ ] Component: Flink Runner
- [ ] Component: Prism Runner
- [ ] Component: Twister2 Runner
- [ ] Component: Hazelcast Jet Runner
- [ ] Component: Google Cloud Dataflow Runner
Contributor guide
Research direction
Start by reading .github/workflows/beam_Infrastructure_UsersPermissions.yml and iam.py, then inspect how the Terraform state is stored in the beam-terraform-infra-state GCS backend. Define how custom-role changes or deletion should be detected and corrected, and what workflow or audit behavior demonstrates that integrity is maintained.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- gcp, github-actions, python, terraform
- Domain
- authorization, cloud, infrastructure, security
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 38/100