// The permission registry: the single enumeration of what this platform can do, and the unit the owner // grants to a role. // // ── Why permissions and not routes ── // // The obvious model is "list the routes a role may call". It does not survive contact with this codebase. // A sweep of all 100 mutating platform routes on 2026-08-06 found reads permanently stuck on POST for two // reasons that are not going away: bodies GET cannot carry (`/stt` multipart audio, `/tts`, `/ocr`, // `/transcribe`), and credentials that must not sit in a query string where access logs, shell history and // Referer headers capture them (`/tts/voices` apiKey, the four `/test` endpoints, `/local-providers/probe`). // Five genuinely free conversions were done in e54d71d; the rest are staying. So the METHOD alone cannot // carry the read/write distinction — hence `readOnlyWrites` below, declared per permission. // // The deeper reason is that a route list is not what the owner is deciding. The owner decides "this person // gets Gitea". A permission is that decision; the prefixes, sockets and screens it expands to are an // implementation detail that belongs next to the decision rather than in the granting UI. // // ── The four kinds, and why `execution` can never be granted ── // // core every authenticated account, always. Not grantable because not deniable — signing in // without them means a broken app, not a restricted one. // app the grantable surface. This is what the owner hands out per role. // confined execution-shaped, but the KERNEL enforces the boundary per account. Grantable, and only // to an account that has a Linux user — see below. // execution NEVER grantable. Owner only, structurally. // admin owner only: the platform administering itself, and the owner's own money and network. // // ── `confined`, and why it is not just `app` ── // // Added 2026-08-11 with per-user Linux accounts (docs/per-user-linux-accounts.md). A confined permission // touches the filesystem or runs a process, so calling it an `app` would be a lie — but it is no longer // the OWNER'S filesystem, because the account has its own Linux user, its own home, and the kernel refusing // everything above it. // // The distinction earns its keep in one place: a grant on a confined permission means NOTHING unless the // account actually has that Linux user. `authorize.ts` drops confined grants for an account with no // `osUser`, so "granted but unconfined" resolves to no access rather than to the owner's home. That rule // lives there, once, instead of in each router that would otherwise have to remember it. // // Moving a permission from `execution` to `confined` is therefore a claim with a test attached: every path // it reaches must resolve its directory from the CALLER, not from HOME_DIR. // // `execution` is the important one. Everything under it runs as the OWNER'S OS user in the owner's home // directory: the terminal is a real shell, chat spawns `claude` with --dangerously-skip-permissions, tasks // run arbitrary scripts, the file browser and code editor read and write the owner's disk, the desktop is // the owner's physical screen. Granting any of them is not a feature flag, it is co-ownership of the // machine. There is no level of "read" that makes a shell safe, which is why these have no level at all. // Revisit only if per-user home confinement is ever solved — and that is a project, not a checkbox. // // ── Read by default ── // // A grant carries a level, `read` or `write`. `read` permits safe methods (GET/HEAD/OPTIONS) anywhere in // the permission, plus mutations under `personal` — sub-paths that hold the CALLER'S own data and nothing // else. `dashboards` is the worked example: a dashboard belongs to the account that made it, so the whole // surface is personal and a read grant is really "your own, fully". So "may a member write here" is a // property of the endpoint, not a policy knob someone has to remember to set. // // Music was this note's example until 2026-08-15, when it left with `plugins/music/`. A plugin declares // the same thing through its manifest's `readOnlyWrites` — `isRequestAllowedAtLevel` merges the two lists, // so they are one mechanism under two names. export type PermissionKind = 'core' | 'app' | 'confined' | 'execution' | 'admin'; export type Permission = { /** Stable identifier. Stored in the database as the grant's subject — renaming one is a data change. */ key: string; label: string; description: string; kind: PermissionKind; /** * Path prefixes under `/api`, written exactly as they are mounted on protectedRouter in hono.ts — * leading slash, no `/api`. The totality check pairs these against the real mount table, so a prefix * here that nothing mounts is as much an error as a mount nothing claims. */ api: string[]; /** WebSocket providers, named as in server.tsx's `handlers` map. */ ws?: string[]; /** Frontend route prefixes. Filters the dock and the app registry; never a security boundary. */ routes?: string[]; /** * Sub-paths, relative to each `api` prefix, that a READ grant may still mutate because they hold only * the caller's own data. Matched as a prefix after the permission's own: `/devices` on the `notify` * permission permits `POST /api/notify/devices/123`. */ personal?: string[]; /** * Reads that must stay POST — see the note at the top. A read grant permits these paths at any method. * Written relative to the permission's `api` prefix, like `personal`. */ readOnlyWrites?: string[]; /** * Routes any authenticated account may call even holding NO grant on this permission, because they act * on the caller themselves. `METHOD /exact/path`, relative to the permission's prefix — exact, not a * prefix, so this cannot widen by accident. * * One entry exists and it should stay that way. `PUT /api/users` is self-profile update (useAuth.ts * calls it to change your own name and avatar) and has always lived on the same router as the owner-only * account administration beside it. Moving it to `/api/user` would be tidier and would break every * shipped mobile client, so the honest fix is to say out loud that this one route is not what the * permission around it is. */ selfService?: string[]; }; /** * The PLATFORM's own permissions. A plugin's are added on top at runtime — see `setPluginPermissions`. * * Kept separate from the live `PERMISSIONS` below so two invariants hold by construction rather than by * anyone remembering them: a plugin can never become `core` (granted to everyone, undeniable), and a * plugin is never in the fresh-install baseline. */ const CORE_REGISTRY: Permission[] = [ // ── core ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── { key: 'account', label: 'Account', description: 'Sign in, your own profile, password, preferences and API keys', kind: 'core', // `/api-keys` is core rather than app or admin because a key is not new authority — it is a second way // to present the authority the account already has, so denying it would only force the holder to keep // using a password in places a password should not go. What a key can then DO is decided by the same // permission checks as any other request from that user; nothing here widens them. api: ['/user', '/dock', '/api-keys'], routes: ['/settings/profile'], }, { key: 'themes', label: 'Themes', description: 'Read the themes installed on this machine', // `core`, and not deniable. Themes are how the interface looks; an account that could not read the // list would render unstyled, which is not a permission decision anyone means to make. It is read-only // — installing a theme is a directory on disk, not a request. kind: 'core', api: ['/themes'], routes: [], }, { key: 'bug-report', label: 'Report a problem', description: 'Send the server owner a bug report', kind: 'core', api: ['/bug-report'], }, // ── app: the grantable surface ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── { key: 'memos', label: 'Memos', description: 'Notes', kind: 'app', // api: ['/memos'], // plugin — switched off 2026-08-13 api: [], routes: ['/memos'], }, { key: 'calendar', label: 'Calendar and contacts', description: 'Calendars, contacts, and the app passwords that sync them to a phone', kind: 'app', api: ['/caldav', '/dav'], routes: ['/calendar', '/contacts'], // App passwords are minted for and revoked by their own owner; `/dav` holds nothing shared. personal: ['/'], }, { key: 'notify', label: 'Notifications', description: 'Push notifications to your devices', kind: 'app', api: ['/notify'], // Device registration is the caller's own — a phone subscribing to its own push channel. // // The `_officer/` segment is NOT decoration: these are the sidecar's paths, and `personal` is matched // against what remains after the permission's own prefix is stripped. Written as `/devices` it matched // nothing, so a read-level member could list their phones but not register or delete one — the exact // opposite of the line above. Invisible in testing because the owner bypasses every check. personal: ['/_officer/devices', '/_officer/subscriptions'], }, // `vpn` (POST /api/vpn/enroll) was here until 2026-08-14 — the one member-grantable piece of headscale, // minting a pre-auth key bound to the caller. Deleted because it had no caller anywhere: the standalone // OffScale app gates it on `embedded`, which it never sets, and it never will — the app is permanently // independent of the platform, since the thing that gets you to the platform cannot itself need it. // // Device enrolment did not go away, it moved out. A phone claims an invite from the Companion at // `${invite.base}/api/v1/enroll/claim`, which is a different component entirely and does not involve // Officer. Confirmed against the mobile monorepo and the companion repo before removal. // // What this cost: the tailnet's own permission was `admin`, so with `vpn` gone no member-grantable // tailnet surface remained. That permission has since left with the offscale plugin, which declares its // own — so a member-facing enrolment surface would be the PLUGIN's to add, not this file's. // Core, not app — and this was a real defect, not a preference. `/api/dashboards` is not a feature, it is // the per-user key-value store where EVERY workspace screen keeps its layout (`screens/files`, // `ws-layout-*`, panel config). `WorkspaceView` renders nothing until that store has loaded, so gating it // meant a member with `files` granted got a completely blank Files screen and no request to // /api/file-browser at all — the panel never mounted. Same for Terminal, Chat and every other screen. // // It is entirely `personal` and always was: every row is keyed to the caller. There is nothing here to // withhold, and withholding it does not restrict an account, it breaks it — which is exactly the // definition of `core` at the top of this file. { key: 'dashboards', label: 'Screen layouts and dashboards', description: 'Where your own screen layouts and dashboards are saved', kind: 'core', api: ['/dashboards'], routes: ['/dashboards'], personal: ['/'], }, // Core because there is nothing to grant a level of: a commander is the caller's own session, in the // caller's own directory, in a table scoped to the caller's own user_id at every query. Withholding // this from a role would not restrict what they can reach, it would just hide their own conversations // from a second list of the same conversations — the same reasoning `dashboards` above rests on. { key: 'command-hq', label: 'Command HQ', description: 'Long-running commanders you started, organised into categories', kind: 'core', api: ['/command-hq'], routes: ['/command-hq'], personal: ['/'], }, // ── execution: never grantable ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── // Confined since 2026-08-11. A member's shell is spawned by the pty sidecar through `sudo setpriv` as their // own Linux account, in their own home, with the platform's environment cleared — so it is their shell, and // the kernel decides what it can reach. The sidecar also records whose each session is, so `list` and `kill` // scope to the caller instead of every shell on the box. // // What this is NOT is a jail. A member with a shell can `cd /` and read whatever the system leaves // world-readable, like any account on any machine. It isolates members from each other and from the owner's // files, which is the promise `confined` makes. { key: 'terminal', label: 'Terminal', description: 'A shell on this machine, as your own user', kind: 'confined', api: ['/terminal'], ws: ['terminal'], routes: ['/terminal'], }, // Confined, and true since 2026-08-12: a member's turn spawns their own `claude` as their own Linux account // through `sudo setpriv`, with their own `~/.claude` credential, their own transcripts and sessions that // record whose they are. The two owner-only refusals that held this open — `api/chat/chat.ts` and the socket // in `server.tsx` — were removed together once each of those was in place. { key: 'chat', label: 'Chat', description: 'The agent', kind: 'confined', // `/agent-status` is on this grant but deliberately NOT on `chatRouter`, because that router refuses // non-owners wholesale — so an endpoint there could not be read by the accounts that need it. It reports // two booleans about the caller's own home and nothing about anyone else, which is what lets a member be // told "run `claude` once to sign in" instead of being shown a tile that 403s. api: ['/chat', '/agent-status'], // 'chat-notify' is a session-independent socket (the bell feature): it carries no sessionId and no // transcript, just a ping that a chat this account can already reach has finished a turn or needs // input. Riding this permission rather than a new one, because it is meaningless without `chat` // already granted. ws: ['chat', 'chat-notify'], routes: ['/chat'], }, // Confined rather than execution since 2026-08-11. Every path under `/file-browser` resolves its root // through `resolveHomeDir(userId)` in a middleware that refuses the request outright when the account has // no Linux user — so a member sees their own home and `resolveUserPath`'s containment check stops them // walking out of it. `/upload` was already per-caller: it writes only under // `DATA_PATH//attachments`, never into a home. { key: 'files', label: 'Files', description: 'Your own home directory on this machine, and the code editor over it', kind: 'confined', api: ['/file-browser', '/upload'], routes: ['/files', '/code-editor'], // `POST /file-browser/download` zips a multi-selection and streams it back. It writes nothing — it is // a POST only because a list of paths does not fit a query string. Without this a read-level member // could download a whole folder (GET /download) but not two files, which is not a rule anyone chose. // // `isPrefixOf` is segment-aware, so this does NOT also permit `/download-video` — which really is a // write, fetching a video onto the disk. readOnlyWrites: ['/download'], }, { key: 'tasks', label: 'Tasks and jobs', description: 'Running permissions, pipelines and background jobs', kind: 'execution', api: ['/tasks', '/jobs', '/pipeline-jobs', '/queue'], ws: ['task-runner', 'pipeline'], routes: ['/jobs'], }, { key: 'items', label: 'Permission authoring', description: 'Skills, tools, agents and processes on disk', kind: 'execution', api: ['/skills', '/tools', '/agents', '/processes', '/rescan'], }, { key: 'desktop', label: 'Desktop', description: "The server owner's physical screen", kind: 'execution', // api: ['/desktop'], // plugin — switched off 2026-08-13 // ws: ['desktop'], api: [], routes: ['/desktop'], }, // `/browser` — the Chrome-extension relay — is unmounted as of 2026-08-13 and dropped from this claim, // because check 2 of assertPermissionTotality refuses to boot on a permission claiming a prefix nothing // serves. Put both back together or neither. // // `/scrape` is untouched and is what this permission still covers. It shares nothing with the relay: it // launches its own headless chromium through playwright and never speaks to the extension. { key: 'browser', label: 'Browser', description: 'Drives a real browser on the host', kind: 'execution', api: ['/scrape'], routes: ['/browser'], }, // ── admin: the platform administering itself ──────────────────────────────────────────────────── { key: 'app-store', label: 'App store', description: 'Install, enable and remove the sidecars this server runs', // Admin, not app. Installing a sidecar starts a process on the machine and provisioning one starts // containers — that is process control, not a feature a member can be granted a read of. The router // gates on the owner in its own right as well; this entry is what makes the boot check pass and what // keeps the surface visible in one enumeration. kind: 'admin', api: ['/app-store'], routes: ['/app-store'], }, { key: 'plugins', label: 'Plugins', description: 'Install, enable and remove the plugins this server runs', // Admin for the same reason as the app store above: installing a plugin mounts routes and starts a // process, which is process control rather than a feature to grant a read of. // // Note this permission guards the MANAGEMENT surface, not the plugins themselves. A plugin declares // its own permissions in its manifest, and those are what gate its routes — so a member can hold // `offscale` at read without being able to install or remove anything. kind: 'admin', api: ['/plugins'], // The API kept its name; only the screen was renamed. `/plugins` stays listed because the redirect // is a real route — a client-side redirect still has to resolve before it can send anyone anywhere. routes: ['/marketplace', '/plugins'], }, { key: 'server-admin', label: 'Server settings', description: 'Server configuration, integrations and the activity log', kind: 'admin', api: ['/server-settings', '/integrations', '/activity', '/system-monitor'], routes: ['/settings/server', '/settings/system', '/activity', '/system-monitor'], }, { key: 'user-admin', label: 'User management', description: 'Accounts, roles and what each role may reach', kind: 'admin', api: ['/users'], routes: ['/settings/user-management'], // Changing your own name, username and avatar. Owner-only account administration is every other route // on this router and stays owner-only — see ownerGate in users-router.ts, which is the second lock. selfService: ['PUT /'], }, // `headscale` lived here until 2026-08-15, when it left with the rest of offscale. A plugin declares // its own permissions in its manifest and they are registered at install — see plugins/mount.ts. The // platform no longer knows this permission exists, which is the entire point. ]; // ── Derived lookups ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── // // `let`, not `const`, because installing a plugin adds permissions and uninstalling removes them. ESM // exports are live bindings, so an importer holding `PERMISSION_BY_KEY` sees the reassignment — every // consumer reads these inside a function, never at module scope, which is what makes that safe. // // Nothing mutates the arrays in place. `setPluginPermissions` replaces them, for the same reason // `buildHonoApp` replaces the app rather than adding routes to it: a half-updated lookup is worse than a // stale one, and replacement has no half. /** Core plus every installed plugin's. The list `permissionForApiPath` and the totality check read. */ export let PERMISSIONS: Permission[] = CORE_REGISTRY; export let PERMISSION_BY_KEY = new Map(PERMISSIONS.map((c) => [c.key, c])); /** * The keys an owner may actually hand to a role. `core` is automatic; `execution` and `admin` are owner-only. * * `confined` is offered here, but a grant on one is inert for an account without a Linux user — that is * enforced in `authorize.ts`, not by withholding it from this list. Withholding it would mean the owner * could not pre-grant a role before provisioning the people in it, which is the normal order of operations. */ export let GRANTABLE_PERMISSIONS = PERMISSIONS.filter((c) => c.kind === 'app' || c.kind === 'confined'); /** * What every role starts with on a fresh install: the three confined permissions, at `write`. * * These are the baseline the platform is FOR — a terminal, a file browser and chat. An account that can sign * in and reach none of them is not a restricted account, it is a useless one, and making the owner grant them * by hand before anyone can do anything is a step with no decision in it. * * Seeded as real rows rather than implied by absence, which keeps the table's one rule intact: a missing row * means no access, always, with no exceptions to remember. So revoking one of these works exactly like * revoking anything else — the row goes, and nothing puts it back. * * `app` permissions are deliberately NOT here. Those reach data the owner may not intend to share, and each * needs a sidecar installed before it means anything anyway. */ // From CORE_REGISTRY, never from PERMISSIONS: a plugin must not be able to put itself in the baseline // every new role starts with. export const DEFAULT_ROLE_PERMISSIONS: string[] = CORE_REGISTRY.filter((c) => c.kind === 'confined').map((c) => c.key); /** * Available to every signed-in account without a grant. * * From CORE_REGISTRY, so a plugin declaring `kind: 'core'` — which its manifest cannot express, but which * a future bug could smuggle in — still could not grant itself to everyone undeniably. */ export const CORE_PERMISSIONS = CORE_REGISTRY.filter((c) => c.kind === 'core'); /** * Replace the plugin half of the registry. Called after every install, uninstall, enable and disable. * * Plugin permissions are dropped and re-added wholesale rather than diffed: the source of truth is the * set of installed plugins, and computing a delta against it would be a second answer to the same * question. A key colliding with a core one is REFUSED here rather than silently overriding — a plugin * that could redefine `chat` or `terminal` could widen it. */ /** * Which of these keys the PLATFORM already claims. * * Exported so install can refuse before it starts, rather than leaving `setPluginPermissions` to reject * the key afterwards — that rejection is real but it happens at mount time and only reaches stderr, so * the install reports success, the dock tile appears, and the route 404s. That exact sequence caught * photos, soulseek and jellyfin on the same machine within a day: each had been a CORE permission until * the extraction commit, so any server whose platform predates it still claims the key. */ export function corePermissionCollisions(keys: string[]): string[] { const coreKeys = new Set(CORE_REGISTRY.map((c) => c.key)); return keys.filter((k) => coreKeys.has(k)); } export function setPluginPermissions(pluginPermissions: Permission[]): { rejected: string[] } { const coreKeys = new Set(CORE_REGISTRY.map((c) => c.key)); const seen = new Set(); const accepted: Permission[] = []; const rejected: string[] = []; for (const permission of pluginPermissions) { if (coreKeys.has(permission.key) || seen.has(permission.key)) { rejected.push(permission.key); continue; } seen.add(permission.key); accepted.push(permission); } PERMISSIONS = [...CORE_REGISTRY, ...accepted]; PERMISSION_BY_KEY = new Map(PERMISSIONS.map((c) => [c.key, c])); GRANTABLE_PERMISSIONS = PERMISSIONS.filter((c) => c.kind === 'app' || c.kind === 'confined'); return { rejected }; } export type PermissionLevel = 'read' | 'write'; const isPrefixOf = (prefix: string, path: string): boolean => prefix === '/' || path === prefix || path.startsWith(`${prefix}/`); /** * Which permission owns this path? `path` is the full request path (`/api/gitea/...`). * * Longest prefix wins, so a permission may claim `/dav` while another claims `/dav/something` without the * order of the array mattering. Returns null for a path no permission claims — which the totality check * below is there to make impossible for anything mounted on protectedRouter. */ export function permissionForApiPath(path: string): Permission | null { const rest = path.startsWith('/api') ? path.slice('/api'.length) : path; let best: Permission | null = null; let bestLength = -1; for (const permission of PERMISSIONS) { for (const prefix of permission.api) { if (isPrefixOf(prefix, rest) && prefix.length > bestLength) { best = permission; bestLength = prefix.length; } } } return best; } export function permissionForWsProvider(provider: string): Permission | null { return PERMISSIONS.find((c) => c.ws?.includes(provider)) ?? null; } /** * Is this an exact self-service route — one any authenticated account may call without holding the * permission at all? Matched exactly on method AND path, never as a prefix. */ export function isSelfServiceRoute(permission: Permission, method: string, path: string): boolean { if (!permission.selfService?.length) return false; const rest = path.startsWith('/api') ? path.slice('/api'.length) : path; const upper = method.toUpperCase(); return permission.api.some((prefix) => { if (!isPrefixOf(prefix, rest)) return false; const sub = rest.slice(prefix.length) || '/'; return permission.selfService!.includes(`${upper} ${sub}`); }); } const SAFE_METHODS = new Set(['GET', 'HEAD', 'OPTIONS']); /** * May a caller holding `level` on `permission` make this request? * * `write` is unconditional within the permission. `read` permits safe methods, anything the permission * declares as a `readOnlyWrites` read-in-POST-clothing, and mutations confined to `personal` sub-paths. */ export function isRequestAllowedAtLevel( permission: Permission, level: PermissionLevel, method: string, path: string, ): boolean { if (level === 'write') return true; if (SAFE_METHODS.has(method.toUpperCase())) return true; const rest = path.startsWith('/api') ? path.slice('/api'.length) : path; // Strip whichever of the permission's own prefixes matched, so `personal` entries are written relative // to the permission rather than repeated per prefix. const withinPermission = permission.api .filter((prefix) => isPrefixOf(prefix, rest)) .map((prefix) => rest.slice(prefix.length) || '/'); const allowed = [...(permission.personal ?? []), ...(permission.readOnlyWrites ?? [])]; return withinPermission.some((sub) => allowed.some((entry) => isPrefixOf(entry, sub))); }