Bug: CreateGroup via PAT creates an orphan group row
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Since May 25, 2026.
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- Go
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Description
Summary
When CreateGroup is called by a PAT-authenticated principal, the Postgres groups row is written but the SpiceDB hierarchy links and owner policy are never wired. The row is left as an orphan.
Reproduction
- Authenticate as a PAT scoped to an org with the create-group permission.
- Call
CreateGroup. - Observe: response carries an error; a row exists in
groupsfor the requested name; SpiceDB has nogroup#org/org#member@grouprelations and no owner policy inpolicies.
Root cause
core/group/service.go:72-74—s.repository.Create(ctx, grp)writes the Postgres row first.core/group/service.go:77—s.membershipService.OnGroupCreated(ctx, newGroup.ID, newGroup.OrganizationID, principal.ID, principal.Type)passes the raw principal. For PAT auth this is(<pat-id>, "app/pat").core/membership/service.go:1302—OnGroupCreatedcallsSetGroupMemberRole(..., creatorID, creatorType, schema.GroupOwnerRole).core/membership/service.go:1402-1420—validateGroupPrincipalswitches on principal type and accepts onlyapp/user; everything else returnsErrInvalidPrincipalType.- The error propagates back to the group
Createcaller, butrepository.Createis not rolled back.
Impact
- Orphan rows accumulate in
groupson each failed PAT-drivenCreateGroupcall. - The orphan has no hierarchy in SpiceDB, no owner policy in Postgres, and is unreachable through normal listing (membership-based listing won't surface it either, since there's no policy row).
Suggested fix
Resolve the PAT to its underlying user before invoking OnGroupCreated, mirroring the pattern in CreateProject at core/project/service.go:113:
principal, err := s.authnService.GetPrincipal(ctx)
if err != nil {
return Group{}, fmt.Errorf("%w: %s", authenticate.ErrInvalidID, err.Error())
}
...
subjectID, subjectType := principal.ResolveSubject() // PAT → user
if err = s.membershipService.OnGroupCreated(ctx, newGroup.ID, newGroup.OrganizationID, subjectID, subjectType); err != nil {
return Group{}, err
}
Two-line change. Independent of the ListByUser → List migration in #1643 (this bug pre-dates that work).
Cleanup
Existing orphan rows should be identified and either backfilled with hierarchy + owner or deleted. Candidate query: groups whose id has no matching row in policies with resource_type = 'app/group'.
How surfaced
Found while testing the group listing migration in #1643 with PAT-authenticated calls. The listing bug there was fixed in 42a5c508; this write-side bug is independent.
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