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Add Oso to Your Node.js App

In this guide, we’ll cover how to add Oso to your Node.js application. Start here to understand how to use Oso. Then, jump into our more detailed how to section on topics that are important to you.

To use Oso, you’ll:

  • Model your authorization logic by writing a policy with resources. Resources allow you to declaratively specify the permissions and roles you want your users to have.
  • Enforce authorization throughout your app. Call Oso in your request handlers to reject or accept requests based on your authorization policy.

Once you’ve added policies and enforcement, you’ll have Oso setup and enforcing authorization in your application. To go further with Oso:

  • Write Polar rules to extend your authorization model with custom logic. A Polar rule specifies when a user is allowed to perform a specific action on a resource. For example, you may deny access from banned users or allow any user to access a public resource.
  • Filter collections of data: by applying enforcement at the data access layer. Many applications perform authorization over large collections of data that cannot be loaded into memory. Often index pages showing users a number of resources, like the repositories they can access, will need to use data filtering. The data filtering API provides support for these use cases.

The Oso Library works best in monolithic applications. If you’re building authorization for more than one service or want to share a policy across multiple applications, read how to add Oso Cloud to your app.

Model your authorization logic

Authorization in Oso starts with the policy. Authorization policies define the resources that you want to control access to, and rules that specify when an actor (the user making the request) can perform an action on a resource. Because Oso is a library, you can write authorization policies directly over the same data types that are already used in your application.

Enforce authorization

Add authorization enforcement throughout your application using the authorize API to reject or accept requests that users make.

Write Polar Rules

Polar is Oso's declarative policy language. To use Oso, you model your authorization logic as a set of rules.In this guide, we'll go into more detail on writing rules yourself.

Filter collections of data

Many applications perform authorization over large collections of data that cannot be loaded into memory. Often index pages showing users a number of resources, like the repositories they can access, will need to use data filtering. The data filtering API provides support for these use cases.

Connect with us on Slack

If you have any questions, or just want to talk something through, jump into Slack. An Oso engineer or one of the thousands of developers in the growing community will be happy to help.