Auth plugin

The scope auth plugin aims to be a general purpose authorization plugin that can handle a wide variety of authorization use cases, while incurring a minimal performance overhead.

Usage

Install

npm install --save @pothos/plugin-scope-auth

When using scope-auth with other plugins, the scope-auth plugin should generally be listed first to ensure that other plugins that wrap resolvers do not execute before the scope-auth logic. However, exceptions do exist where it is desirable for a plugin to run before scope-auth. For instance, putting the relay plugin before the scope-auth plugin results in the authScopes function correctly receiving parsed globalIDs.

Setup

import SchemaBuilder from '@pothos/core';
import ScopeAuthPlugin from '@pothos/plugin-scope-auth';
 
type MyPerms = 'readStuff' | 'updateStuff' | 'readArticle';
 
const builder = new SchemaBuilder<{
  // Types used for scope parameters
  AuthScopes: {
    public: boolean;
    employee: boolean;
    deferredScope: boolean;
    customPerm: MyPerms;
  };
}>({
  plugins: [ScopeAuthPlugin],
  scopeAuth: {
    // Recommended when using subscriptions
    // when this is not set, auth checks are run when event is resolved rather than when the subscription is created
    authorizeOnSubscribe: true,
    // scope initializer, create the scopes and scope loaders for each request
    authScopes: async (context) => ({
      public: !!context.User,
      // eagerly evaluated scope
      employee: await context.User.isEmployee(),
      // evaluated when used
      deferredScope: () => context.User.isEmployee(),
      // scope loader with argument
      customPerm: (perm) => context.permissionService.hasPermission(context.User, perm),
    }),
  },
});

In the above setup, We import the scope-auth plugin, and include it in the builders plugin list. We also define 2 important things:

The AuthScopes type in the builder SchemaTypes. This is a map of types that defines the types used by each of your scopes. We'll see how this is used in more detail below.
The scope initializer function, which is the implementation of each of the scopes defined in the type above. This function returns a map of either booleans (indicating if the request has the scope) or functions that load the scope (with an optional parameter).

The names of the scopes (public, employee, deferredScope, and customPerm) are all arbitrary, and are not part of the plugin. You can use whatever scope names you prefer, and can add as many you need.

Using a scope on a field

builder.queryType({
  fields: (t) => ({
    message: t.string({
      authScopes: {
        public: true,
      },
      resolve: () => 'hi',
    }),
  }),
});

Terminology

A lot of terms around authorization are overloaded, and can mean different things to different people. Here is a short list of a few terms used in this document, and how they should be interpreted:

scope: A scope is the unit of authorization that can be used to authorize a request to resolve a field.
scope map: A map of scope names and scope parameters. This defines the set of scopes that will be checked for a field or type to authorize the request the resolve a resource.
scope loader: A function for dynamically loading scope given a scope parameter. Scope loaders are ideal for integrating with a permission service, or creating scopes that can be customized based on the field or values that they are authorizing.
scope parameter: A parameter that will be passed to a scope loader. These are the values in the authScopes objects.
scope initializer: The function that creates the scopes or scope loaders for the current request.

While this plugin uses scopes as the term for its authorization mechanism, this plugin can easily be used for role or permission based schemes, and is not intended to dictate a specific philosophy around how to authorize requests/access to resources.

Use cases

Examples below assume the following builder setup:

const builder = new SchemaBuilder<{
  // Types used for scope parameters
  AuthScopes: {
    public: boolean;
    employee: boolean;
    deferredScope: boolean;
    customPerm: MyPerms;
  };
}>({
  plugins: [ScopeAuthPlugin],
  authScopes: async (context) => ({
    public: !!context.User,
    employee: await context.User.isEmployee(),
    deferredScope: () => context.User.isEmployee(),
    customPerm: (perm) => context.permissionService.hasPermission(context.User, perm),
  }),
});

Top level auth on queries and mutations

To add an auth check to root level queries or mutations, add authScopes to the field options:

builder.queryType({
  fields: (t) => ({
    internalMessage: t.string({
      authScopes: {
        employee: true,
      },
      resolve: () => 'hi',
    }),
  }),
});

This will require the requests to have the employee scope. Adding multiple scopes to the authScopes object will check all the scopes, and if the user has any of the scopes, the request will be considered authorized for the current field. Subscription and Mutation root fields work the same way.

Auth on nested fields

Fields on nested objects can be authorized the same way scopes are authorized on the root types.

builder.objectType(Article, {
  fields: (t) => ({
    title: t.exposeString('title', {
      authScopes: {
        employee: true,
      },
    }),
  }),
});

Default auth for all fields on types

To apply the same scope requirements to all fields on a type, you can define an authScope map in the type options rather than on the individual fields.

builder.objectType(Article, {
  authScopes: {
    public: true,
  },
  fields: (t) => ({
    title: t.exposeString('title', {}),
    content: t.exposeString('content', {}),
  }),
});

Overwriting default auth on field

In some cases you may want to use default auth scopes for a type, but need to change the behavior for one specific field.

To add additional requirements for a specific field you can simply add additional scopes on the field itself.

builder.objectType(Article, {
  authScopes: {
    public: true,
  },
  fields: (t) => ({
    title: t.exposeString('title', {}),
    viewCount: t.exposeInt('viewCount', {
      authScopes: {
        employee: true,
      },
    }),
  }),
});

To remove the type level scopes for a field, you can use the skipTypeScopes option:

builder.objectType(Article, {
  authScopes: {
    public: true,
  },
  fields: (t) => ({
    title: t.exposeString('title', {
      skipTypeScopes: true,
    }),
    content: t.exposeString('title', {}),
  }),
});

This will allow non-logged in users to resolve the title, but not the content of an Article. skipTypeScopes can be used in conjunction with authScopes on a field to completely overwrite the default scopes.

Running scopes on types rather than fields

By default, all auth scopes are tested before a field resolves. This includes both scopes defined on a type and scopes defined on a field. When scopes for a type fail, you will end up with an error for each field of that type. Type level scopes are only executed once, but the errors are emitted for each affected field.

The behavior may not be desirable for all users. You can set runScopesOnType to true, either on object types, or in the scopeAuth options of the builder

const builder = new SchemaBuilder<{
  Context: Context;
  AuthScopes: {
    loggedIn: boolean;
  };
}>({
  scopeAuth: {
    // Affects all object types (Excluding Query, Mutation, and Subscription)
    runScopesOnType: true,
    authScopes: async (context) => ({
      loggedIn: !!context.User,
    }),
  },
  plugins: [ScopeAuthPlugin],
});
 
builder.objectType(Article, {
  runScopesOnType: true,
  authScopes: {
    readArticle: true,
  },
  fields: (t) => ({
    title: t.exposeString('title', {
      // this will not have any effect because type scopes are not evaluated at the field level
      skipTypeScopes: true,
    }),
    content: t.exposeString('title', {}),
  }),
});

Enabling this has a couple of limitations:

THIS DOES NOT CURRENTLY WORK WITH graphql-jit. This option uses the isTypeOf function, but graphql-jit does not support async isTypeOf, and also does not correctly pass the context object to the isTypeOf checks. Until this is resolved, this option will not work with graphql-jit.
Fields of types that set runScopesOnType to true will not be able to use skipTypeScopes or skipInterfaceScopes.

Generalized auth functions with field specific arguments

The scopes we have covered so far have all been related to information that applies to a full request. In more complex applications you may not make sense to enumerate all the scopes a request is authorized for ahead of time. To handle these cases you can define a scope loader which takes a parameter and dynamically determines if a request is authorized for a scope using that parameter.

One common example of this would be a permission service that can check if a user or request has a certain permission, and you want to specify the specific permission each field requires.

builder.queryType({
  fields: (t) => ({
    articles: t.field({
      type: [Article],
      authScopes: {
        customPerm: 'readArticle',
      },
      resolve: () => Article.getSome(),
    }),
  }),
});

In the example above, the authScope map uses the customPerm scope loader with a parameter of readArticle. The first time a field requests this scope, the customPerm loader will be called with readArticle as its argument. This scope will be cached, so that if multiple fields request the same scope, the scope loader will still only be called once.

The types for the parameters you provide for each scope are based on the types provided to the builder in the AuthScopes type.

Customizing error messages

Error messages (and error instances) can be customized either globally or on specific fields.

Globally

const builder = new SchemaBuilder<{
  Context: Context;
  AuthScopes: {
    loggedIn: boolean;
  };
}>({
  scopeAuth: {
    treatErrorsAsUnauthorized: true,
    unauthorizedError: (parent, context, info, result) => new Error(`Not authorized`),
    authScopes: async (context) => ({
      loggedIn: !!context.User,
    }),
  },
  plugins: [ScopeAuthPlugin],
});

The unauthorizedError callback will be called with the parent, context, and info object of the unauthorized field. It will also include a 4th argument result that has the default message for this type of failure, and a failure property with some details about what caused the field to be unauthorized. This callback can either return an Error instance (or an instance of a class that extends Error), or a string. If a string is returned, it will be converted to a ForbiddenError.

The treatErrorsAsUnauthorized option changes how errors in authorization functions are handled. By default errors are not caught by the plugin, and will act as if thrown directly from the resolver. This means that thrown errors bypass the unauthorizedError callback, and will cause requests to fail even when another scope in an $any passes.

Setting treatErrorsAsUnauthorized will cause errors to be caught and treated as if the scope was not authorized.

Surfacing errors thrown in authorization checks

When treatErrorsAsUnauthorized is set to true, errors are caught and attached to the result object in the unauthorizedError callback. This allows you to surface the error to the client.

For example, if you want to re-throw errors thrown by authorization functions you could do this by writing a custom unauthorizedError callback like this:

import SchemaBuilder from '@pothos/core';
import ScopeAuthPlugin, { AuthFailure, AuthScopeFailureType } from '@pothos/plugin-scope-auth';
 
// Find the first error and re-throw it
function throwFirstError(failure: AuthFailure) {
  // Check if the failure has an error attached to it and re-throw it
  if ('error' in failure && failure.error) {
    throw failure.error;
  }
 
  // Loop over any/all scopes and see if one of their children has an error to throw
  if (
    failure.kind === AuthScopeFailureType.AnyAuthScopes ||
    failure.kind === AuthScopeFailureType.AllAuthScopes
  ) {
    for (const child of failure.failures) {
      throwFirstError(child);
    }
  }
}
 
const builder = new SchemaBuilder<{
  Context: Context;
  AuthScopes: {
    loggedIn: boolean;
  };
}>({
  scopeAuth: {
    treatErrorsAsUnauthorized: true,
    unauthorizedError: (parent, context, info, result) => {
      // throw an error if it's found
      throwFirstError(result.failure);
      // throw a fallback error if no error was found
      return new Error(`Not authorized`);
    },
  },
  plugins: [ScopeAuthPlugin],
  authScopes: async (context) => ({
    loggedIn: !!context.User,
  }),
});

On individual fields

builder.queryType({
  fields: (t) => ({
    example: t.string({
      authScopes: { loggedIn: true },
      unauthorizedError: (parent, args, context, info, result) =>
        new Error("You must be logged in to query the 'example' field"),
      resolve: () => 'example',
    }),
  }),
});

Returning a custom value when unauthorized

In some cases you may want to return null, and empty array, throw a custom error, or return a custom result when a user is not authorized. To do this you can add a unauthorizedResolver option to your field.

builder.queryType({
  fields: (t) => ({
    articles: t.field({
      type: [Article],
      authScopes: {
        customPerm: 'readArticle',
      },
      resolve: () => Article.getSome(),
      unauthorizedResolver: () => [],
    }),
  }),
});

In the example above, if a user is not authorized they will simply receive an empty array in the response. The unauthorizedResolver option takes the same arguments as a resolver, but also receives a 5th argument that is an instance of ForbiddenError.

Setting scopes that apply for a full request

We have already seen several examples of this. For scopes that apply to a full request like public or employee, rather than using a scope loader, the scope initializer can simply use a boolean to indicate if the request has the given scope. If you know ahead of time that a scope loader will always return false for a specific request, you can do something like the following to avoid the additional overhead of running the loader:

const builder = new SchemaBuilder<{
  AuthScopes: {
    humanPermission: string;
  };
}>({
  plugins: [ScopeAuthPlugin],
  authScopes: async (context) => ({
    humanPermission: context.user.isHuman() ? (perm) => context.user.hasPermission(perm) : false,
  }),
});

This will ensure that if a request accesses a field that requests a humanPermission scope, and the request is made by another service or bot, we don't have to run the hasPermission check at all for those requests, since we know it would return false anyways.

Change context types based on scopes

Sometimes you need to change your context typings depending on the applied scopes. You can provide custom context for your defined scopes and use the authField method to access the custom context:

type Context = {
  user: User | null;
};
 
const builder = new SchemaBuilder<{
  Context: Context;
  AuthScopes: {
    loggedIn: boolean;
  };
  AuthContexts: {
    loggedIn: Context & { user: User };
  };
}>({
  plugins: [ScopeAuthPlugin],
  authScopes: async (context) => ({
    loggedIn: !!context.user,
  }),
});
 
builder.queryField('currentId', (t) =>
  t.authField({
    type: 'ID',
    authScopes: {
      loggedIn: true,
    },
    resolve: (parent, args, context) => context.user.id,
  }),
);

Some plugins contribute field builder methods with additional functionality that may not work with t.authField. In order to work with those methods, there is also a t.withAuth method that can be used to return a field builder with authScopes predefined.

type Context = {
  user: User | null;
};
 
const builder = new SchemaBuilder<{
  Context: Context;
  AuthScopes: {
    loggedIn: boolean;
  };
  AuthContexts: {
    loggedIn: Context & { user: User };
  };
}>({
  plugins: [ScopeAuthPlugin],
  authScopes: async (context) => ({
    loggedIn: !!context.user,
  }),
});
 
builder.queryField('viewer', (t) =>
  t
    .withAuth({
      loggedIn: true,
    })
    .prismaField({
      type: User,
      resolve: (query, root, args, ctx) =>
        prisma.findUniqueOrThrow({
          ...query,
          where: { id: ctx.user.id },
        }),
    }),
);

Logical operations on auth scopes (any/all)

By default the scopes in a scope map are evaluated in parallel, and if the request has any of the requested scopes, the field will be resolved. In some cases, you may want to require multiple scopes:

builder.objectType(Article, {
  fields: (t) => ({
    title: t.exposeString('title', {}),
    viewCount: t.exposeInt('viewCount', {
      authScopes: {
        $all: {
          $any: {
            employee: true,
            deferredScope: true,
          },
          public: true,
        },
      },
    }),
  }),
});

You can use the built in $any and $all scope loaders to combine requirements for scopes. The above example requires a request to have either the employee or deferredScope scopes, and the public scope. $any and $all each take a scope map as their parameters, and can be nested inside each other.

You can change the default strategy used for top level auth scopes by setting the defaultStrategy option in the builder (defaults to any):

const builder = new SchemaBuilder<{
  Context: {
    user: User | null;
  };
  AuthScopes: {
    loggedIn: boolean;
  };
  DefaultAuthStrategy: 'all';
}>({
  plugins: [ScopeAuthPlugin],
  scopeAuthOptions: {
    defaultStrategy: 'all',
  },
  authScopes: async (context) => ({
    loggedIn: !!context.user,
  }),
});

Auth that depends on parent value

For cases where the required scopes depend on the value of the requested resource you can use a function in the authScopes option that returns the scope map for the field.

builder.objectType(Article, {
  fields: (t) => ({
    viewCount: t.exposeInt('viewCount', {
      authScopes: (article, args, context, info) => {
        if (context.User.id === article.author.id) {
          // If user is author, let them see it
          // returning a boolean lets you set auth without specifying other scopes to check
          return true;
        }
 
        // If the user is not the author, require the employee scope
        return {
          employee: true,
        };
      },
    }),
  }),
});

authScope functions on fields will receive the same arguments as the field resolver, and will be called each time the resolve for the field would be called. This means the same authScope function could be called multiple time for the same resource if the field is requested multiple times using an alias.

Returning a boolean from an auth scope function is an easy way to allow or disallow a request from resolving a field without needing to evaluate additional scopes.

Setting type level scopes based on the parent value

You can also use a function in the authScope option for types. This function will be invoked with the parent and the context as its arguments, and should return a scope map.

builder.objectType(Article, {
  authScope: (parent, context) => {
    if (parent.isPublished()) {
      return {
        public: true,
      };
    }
 
    return {
      employee: true,
    };
  },
  fields: (t) => ({
    title: t.exposeString('title', {}),
  }),
});

The above example uses an authScope function to prevent the fields of an article from being loaded by non employees unless they have been published.

Setting scopes based on the return value of a field

This is a use that is not currently supported. The current work around is to move those checks down to the returned type. Combining this with runScopesOnType should work for most cases.

Granting access to a resource based on how it is accessed

In some cases, you may want to grant a request scopes to access certain fields on a child type. To do this you can use $granted scopes.

builder.queryType({
  fields: (t) => ({
    freeArticle: t.field({
      grantScopes: ['readArticle'],
      // or
      grantScopes: (parent, args, context, info) => ['readArticle'],
    }),
  }),
});
 
builder.objectType(Article, {
  authScopes: {
    public: true,
    $granted: 'readArticle',
  }
  fields: (t) => ({
    title: t.exposeString('title', {}),
  }),
});

In the above example, the fields of the Article type normally require the public scope granted to logged in users, but can also be accessed with the $granted scope readArticle. This means that if the field that returned the Article "granted" the scope, the article can be read. The freeArticle field on the Query type grants this scope, allowing anyone querying that field to access fields of the free article. $granted scopes are separate from other scopes, and do not give a request access to normal scopes of the same name. $granted scopes are also not inherited by nested children, and would need to be explicitly passed down for each field if you wanted to grant access to nested children.

Reusing checks for multiple, but not all fields

You may have cases where groups of fields on a type are accessible using some shared condition. This is another case where $granted scopes can be helpful.

builder.objectType(Article, {
  grantScopes: (article, context) => {
    if (context.User.id === article.author.id) {
      return ['author', 'readArticle'];
    }
 
    if (article.isDraft()) {
      return [];
    }
 
    return ['readArticle'];
  },
  fields: (t) => ({
    title: t.exposeString('title', {
      authScopes: {
        $granted: 'readArticle',
      },
    }),
    content: t.exposeString('content', {
      authScopes: {
        $granted: 'readArticle',
      },
    }),
    viewCount: t.exposeInt('viewCount', {
      authScopes: {
        $granted: 'author',
      },
    }),
  }),
});

In the above example, title, content, and viewCount each use $granted scopes. In this case, rather than scopes being granted by the parent field, they are granted by the Article type itself. This allows the access to each field to change based on some dynamic conditions (if the request is from the author, and if the article is a draft) without having to duplicate that logic in each individual field.

Interfaces

Interfaces can define auth scopes on their fields the same way objects do. Fields for a type will run checks for each interface it implements separately, meaning that a request would need to satisfy the scope requirements for each interface separately before the field is resolved.

Object types can set skipInterfaceScopes to true to skip interface checks when resolving fields for that Object type.

Cache keys

Auth scopes by default are cached based on the identity of the scope parameter. This works great for statically defined scopes, and scopes that take primitive values as their parameters. If you define auth scopes that take complex objects, and create those objects in a scope function (based on arguments, or parent values) You won't get cache hits on those checks.

To work around this, you can provide a cacheKey option to the builder for generating a cache key from your scope checks.

const builder = new SchemaBuilder<{
  Context: Context;
  AuthScopes: {
    loggedIn: boolean;
  };
}>({
  scopeAuth: {
    cacheKey: (val) => JSON.stringify(val),
    authScopes: async (context) => ({
      loggedIn: !!context.User,
    }),
  },
  plugins: [ScopeAuthPlugin],
});

Above we are using JSON.stringify to generate a key. This will work for most complex objects, but you may want to consider something like faster-stable-stringify that can handle circular references, and swill always produce the same output regardless of the order of properties.

When checks are run, and how things are cached

Scope Initializer

The scope initializer would be run once the first time a field protected by auth scopes is resolved, its result will be cached for the current request.

authScopes functions on fields

When using a function for authScopes on a field, the function will be run each time the field is resolved, since it has access to all the arguments passed to the resolver

authScopes functions on types

When using a function for authScopes on a type, the function will be run the once for each instance of that type in the response. It will be run lazily when the first field for that object is resolved, and its result will be cached and reused by all fields for that instance of the type.

AuthScopes: extends {}. Each property is the name of its scope, each value is the type for the scopes parameter.
ScopeLoaderMap: Object who's keys are scope names (from AuthScopes) and whos values are either booleans (indicating whether or not the request has the scope) or function that take a parameter (type from AuthScope) and return MaybePromise<boolean>
ScopeMap: A map of scope names to parameters. Based on AuthScopes, may also contain $all, $any or $granted.

Builder

authScopes: (context: Types['Context']) => MaybePromise<ScopeLoaderMap<Types>>

Object and Interface options

authScopes: ScopeMap or function, accepts parent and context returns MaybePromise<ScopeMap>
grantScopes: function, accepts parent and context returns MaybePromise<string[]>

Field Options

authScopes: ScopeMap or function, accepts same arguments as resolver, returns MaybePromise<ScopeMap>
grantScopes: string[] or function, accepts same arguments as resolver, returns MaybePromise<string[]>
skipTypeScopes: boolean
skipInterfaceScopes: boolean

toSchema options

disableScopeAuth: disable the scope auth plugin. Useful for testing.

Auth plugin

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