openfga / openfga/language

Do not allow a standalone `*` as an ID

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enhancement needs discussion
Dominant language
Go
Stars
35
Forks
17
Avg merge
48m
Merged PRs (30d)
10

Description

As part of the new validation functions, object uses the object and the type + id rules, user uses: object or object + relation or type + id

See: https://github.com/openfga/language/blob/main/pkg/js/validator/validate-rules.ts

For DX reasons, because user:* has very specific interpretation when used as a user, we should not allow objects to be user:* (user:an*ne and user:*anne* should still be allowed). Allowing them leads confusion and causes some users to mistakenly think that the below means anne will have access to all documents:

- user: user:anne
  relation: viewer
  object: document:*

One way of doing this is by changing this ID regex from:

  • [^#:\\s]+
    to
  • (?=[^\\*])[^#:\\s]+
    but other methods are also OK.

The result should be that calling ValidateObject('user:*') or ValidateUser('team:*#member') should fail but ValidateUser('user:*') should succeed

Note that the OpenFGA API currently allows user:* and document:* as an object, and this would be a breaking change.

We should raise this with the server team as well as with the community to ensure that their use-cases are still being met (in case anyone is using <type>:* as an object).

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start in pkg/js/validator/validate-rules.ts and inspect the validation paths for ValidateObject and ValidateUser. Confirm that ValidateObject('user:') and ValidateUser('team:#member') fail while ValidateUser('user:') succeeds, and that IDs such as user:anne remain valid. Before implementation, raise the breaking-change concern with the server team and community.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
developer-experience
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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