lasuite-drive/docs/entitlements.md

Entitlements

The entitlements system provides a pluggable backend architecture for checking user permissions and capabilities within the Drive application. It allows you to determine whether users can access the application and perform specific actions like uploading files.

Overview

The entitlements system is designed to be flexible and extensible. It uses a backend pattern where different implementations can be configured based on your deployment needs. The system automatically discovers and exposes all methods starting with can_ from the configured backend through the API.

Architecture

The entitlements system consists of:

• Base Backend Interface (EntitlementsBackend): An abstract base class that defines the required interface
• Backend Implementations: Concrete implementations that provide the actual entitlement checking logic
• Backend Factory: A utility function that loads and caches the configured backend
• API Endpoint: A REST API endpoint that exposes entitlements to authenticated users

Backend Interface

All entitlements backends must inherit from EntitlementsBackend and implement at least two abstract methods:

• can_access(user): Can the OIDC logged in user access the app?
• can_upload(user): Can the OIDC logged in user upload new files?

These methods need to return a dictionary with a result key (boolean) indicating if the user can upload files. Optionally includes a message key for user-facing messages.

The API endpoint automatically discovers and exposes all methods starting with can_ from the backend, making it easy to extend with additional permission checks.

Available Backends

Static Backend

The StaticEntitlementsBackend is the default backend used for development and testing. It returns the values passed to its constructor via ENTITLEMENTS_BACKEND_PARAMETERS["entitlements"]. When no parameters are provided, it grants access for every check; configure them to simulate denied users (staging, demos, manual QA).

Configuration:

ENTITLEMENTS_BACKEND = "core.entitlements.backends.static.StaticEntitlementsBackend"
ENTITLEMENTS_BACKEND_PARAMETERS = {
    "entitlements": {
        "can_upload": {"result": True},
        "can_access": {"result": True},
    },
}

Local Backend

The LocalEntitlementsBackend enforces a per-user storage quota computed from local data, without relying on any external service. Every user gets a default limit (10 GiB unless configured otherwise), and the usage is computed by the configured storage compute backend (by default, the sum of the sizes of the items the user created — files count against their creator).

Configuration:

ENTITLEMENTS_BACKEND = "core.entitlements.backends.local.LocalEntitlementsBackend"
ENTITLEMENTS_BACKEND_PARAMETERS = {
    # Default storage limit in bytes (optional, defaults to 10 GiB).
    "default_storage_limit": 10737418240,
    # Users created before this datetime have no limit (optional).
    "exempt_users_created_before": "2026-01-01T00:00:00+00:00",
    # Safety net expiry in seconds for the cached usage (optional, defaults to 3600).
    "cache_timeout": 3600,
}

Caching: the storage used by each user is cached (storage_used:user:<id> key) and invalidated whenever an item write changes it (upload, collaborative save, conversion, duplication, hard delete, creator reassignment). The cache_timeout expiry is only a safety net: a value primed concurrently with a write can stay stale for up to that duration.

Per-user override: the limit can be overridden for each user through the storage_limit_override field, editable in the Django admin. Leave it empty to apply the configured default limit, set it to 0 for unlimited storage, or set any positive number of bytes. The override always takes precedence over the exempt_users_created_before cutoff.

Grandfathering: when exempt_users_created_before is set, users created before that datetime (and without an override) have no storage limit. This allows rolling out quotas for new users only.

Users without a limit (grandfathered or override set to 0) get no quota entry in the entitlements response, so no quota gauge is rendered.

Note that the quota is soft: can_upload is checked before the file size is known, so a single upload can overshoot the limit; the next one is then blocked.

DeployCenter Backend

The DeployCenterEntitlementsBackend integrates with an external DeployCenter entitlements service to check user permissions based on their account email and other OIDC claims.

It fetches entitlements from an external API using a cache mechanism.

API Endpoint

GET /api/v1.0/entitlements/

Returns all entitlements for the authenticated user.

Authentication: Required (user must be authenticated)

Response Format:

{
  "can_access": {
    "result": true
  },
  "can_upload": {
    "result": false,
    "message": "Upload quota exceeded"
  }
}

Response Fields:

• Each key corresponds to a method name from the backend (methods starting with can_)
• Each value is a dictionary containing:
  • result (boolean): Whether the user has the permission
  • message (string, optional): A user-facing message explaining the result

Example Request:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" \
     https://drive.example.com/api/v1.0/entitlements/

Example Response:

{
  "can_access": {
    "result": true
  },
  "can_upload": {
    "result": true
  }
}

Creating Custom Backends

To create a custom entitlements backend:

1. Create a new backend class that inherits from EntitlementsBackend:

from core.entitlements.backends.base import EntitlementsBackend

class CustomEntitlementsBackend(EntitlementsBackend):
    """Custom entitlements backend."""

    def can_access(self, user):
        """
        Check if a user can access the app.

        Returns:
            dict: Dictionary with 'result' key (bool) and optional 'message' key (str)
        """
        # Your custom logic here
        return {"result": True}

    def can_upload(self, user):
        """
        Check if a user can upload files.

        Returns:
            dict: Dictionary with 'result' key (bool) and optional 'message' key (str)
        """
        # Your custom logic here
        return {"result": False, "message": "Uploads are disabled"}

2. Configure the backend in your settings:

ENTITLEMENTS_BACKEND = "your_module.backends.custom.CustomEntitlementsBackend"
ENTITLEMENTS_BACKEND_PARAMETERS = {
    # Any parameters your backend needs - passed as kwargs to the constructor
}

3. Accept parameters via constructor (if needed):

Constructor parameters are generic, use the one you need and add custom ones if needed.

Example:

from core.entitlements.backends.base import EntitlementsBackend

class CustomEntitlementsBackend(EntitlementsBackend):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        self.api_url = kwargs["api_url"]
        # ...

    def can_access(self, user):
        # Use self.api_url, self.api_key, etc.
        return {"result": True}