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docs: add ADR for glob support for role assignments#234

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BryanttV wants to merge 2 commits intoopenedx:mainfrom
eduNEXT:bav/adr-0012
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docs: add ADR for glob support for role assignments#234
BryanttV wants to merge 2 commits intoopenedx:mainfrom
eduNEXT:bav/adr-0012

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@BryanttV BryanttV commented Mar 19, 2026

Related issue: #172

Description

This PR adds ADR 0012 - Glob Support For Role Assignments, proposing an extension to the authorization model (Casbin) so that role assignments (g policies) can use glob-like matching in the scope field.

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  • Version bumped
  • Changelog record added
  • Documentation updated (not only docstrings)
  • Fixup commits are squashed away
  • Unit tests added/updated
  • Manual testing instructions provided
  • Noted any: Concerns, dependencies, migration issues, deadlines, tickets

@openedx-webhooks openedx-webhooks added open-source-contribution PR author is not from Axim or 2U core contributor PR author is a Core Contributor (who may or may not have write access to this repo). labels Mar 19, 2026
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openedx-webhooks commented Mar 19, 2026

Thanks for the pull request, @BryanttV!

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@BryanttV BryanttV marked this pull request as ready for review March 19, 2026 14:55
We will configure the ``AuthzEnforcer`` to use a domain/scope matching function for ``g`` policies that supports glob-like suffixes. Concretely:

- The enforcer will register a domain matching function for the ``g`` (grouping) function (for example, using ``key_match_func``).
- This matching function will treat ``*`` as a wildcard at the **end** of the string. That is, patterns such as ``course-v1:OpenedX+*`` will match ``course-v1:OpenedX+SOME+COURSE``, but the model will not rely on complex patterns or regular expressions.
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Can you add a little more about the scope boundaries and how they are determined? Also exactly where a suffix can begin? Specifically I'd like to document which of these scopes would be considered valid:

  • *
  • c*
  • course-*
  • course-v1*
  • course-v1:*
  • course-v1:O*
  • course-v1:OpenedX+* (already listed, and I assume the only one that would be valid?)

Similarly I'd like to be explicit about whether these comparisons are case-sensitive or not.

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I assume these would be different per scope type matcher, but would just like to be explicit about the best practices and how we're choosing to reject globs in scopes that don't have custom matchers.

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Just a couple of comments

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