What are Custom Permission Groups?

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What are Custom Permission Groups?#

Custom Permission Groups give you fine-grained control over the permissions in your Organizations.

Using Custom Permission Groups, you can:

• Select which resources are available to each Group and define what actions are allowed (Read, Write, or Create).
• Alter the scope of a permission from Global to Project, Site, Group, or Base Domain.
• Define file globs and exceptions for each Group for more precise permissions.
• Add multiple permissions and exceptions at different scopes.

The maximum number of Custom Permission Groups you can create will depend on your pricing plan. For more information on Permission Groups in general, please read our documentation on Permission Groups.

Selecting resources#

Custom Permission Groups use the same list of resources as Default Groups. A resource is something you can interact with in CloudCannon, such as an individual Site, Pull Request settings, or billing information. Each resource has one or more associated actions: Read, Write, or Create.

Custom Permission Groups can have multiple permissions, each with their own scope, resources, and allowed actions. When you create a Custom Permission Group, you must select which resources you want to add and what actions you want to allow for each resource. Adding a resource to a permission will allow all members of that Group to interact with that resource.

CloudCannon uses a tree structure to define resources. When you select a resource for your Custom Permission Group, you can choose a broad resource heading (e.g., site:write), or drill down to more specific resources (e.g., site:settings:site-mounting:write or site:publish:pull-requests:merge:write). Adding more specific resources allows your Permission Group to be as fine-grained as you require.

Let’s walk through an example.

We want to create a Permission Group where members cannot see any existing Sites in the Organization but can add new Sites, which they can then see and edit. This type of Permission Group might work well to keep teams within your Organization from accessing each other’s content. In this case, we should add the resource site:create but not site:read to our permission.

The create action allows you to create new instances of a resource (in this example, Sites). When you create an instance of a resource, CloudCannon will automatically give you permission to Read and Write that instance. By choosing not to add site:read to this permission, existing Sites in our Organization will not appear in the CloudCannon interface.

For more information, including a complete list of resources available, please read our reference documentation on permissions.

Permission scope#

The scope of a permission defines how broadly it is applied. Permissions in the Default Permission Groups have a Global scope. Permissions for Site Sharing or Client Sharing Groups have a Site scope.

With Custom Permission Groups, you can set a permission at one of five scopes: Global, Project, Site, Group, and Base Domain.

• Global — This scope encompasses your entire Organization (e.g., the resource project:create with the scope Global will allow all members of the Permission Group to create new Projects in your Organization, which they then have permission to edit).
• Project — This scope encompasses a specific Project (e.g., the resource site:publish:pull-request:open:write with a Project scope will allow all members of the Permission Group to create Pull Requests for any site within the chosen Project, but not merge them).
• Site — This scope encompasses a specific Site (e.g., the resource site:analytics:read with a Site scope will allow all members of the Permission Group to view the hosting and building analytics for the chosen Site).
• Group — This scope encompasses a specific Group (e.g., the resource group:member:write with a Group scope will allow all members of the Permission Group to edit the members of a specific Group).
• Base Domain — This scope encompasses a specific Base Domain (e.g., the resource base-domain:settings:dns:write with a Domain scope will allow all members of the Permission Group to edit DNS records for a specific domain).

Custom Permission Groups can include permissions with different scopes. For example, you might want to create a Group that can approve Pull Requests for a specific Project and manage the Domain associated with one Site in that Project. This Permission Group would contain two permissions: one with a Project scope and the resource site:publish:pull-request:merge:write, and one with a Base Domain scope and the resource base-domain:write.

When you select Project, Site, Group, or Base Domain as a scope, CloudCannon will prompt you to select the Target of that scope.

• Target — Which instance you want a scope to pertain to (e.g., name the specific Site or Permission Group).

Not all resources work with all scopes. For example, you can’t give someone the resource project:delete:write with a Site scope, as Sites cannot contain Projects, or org:billing:write with a Group scope, as you cannot control billing at the Group level. When you create a Custom Permission Group, CloudCannon will filter out the resources that don’t apply to your scope.

For best practices and examples, please read our documentation on best practices for selecting resources.

Exceptions#

Exceptions allow you to set broad permissions and then remove specific permissions from a Group. For example, a team member might have permission to edit all Sites within a Project except for the Production Site.

You can add multiple exceptions to a Custom Permission Group. For each exception you must select a scope and a list of resources.

Permission Groups are always additive. In other words, permissions or exceptions in one Group do not negate permissions or exceptions in another. If one Group allows an action, an exception in a second Permission Group does not prevent access to that resource.

Exceptions are more efficient than explicitly providing permission for many resources. Let’s walk through an example.

We want to prevent a team member from editing the Production site but enable editing for all other Sites within the Project. We could explicitly give permission for all those Sites. However, each time someone adds a new Site to the Project, we would need to update the Permission Group. Using an exception, we can remove permission for a single site and set the scope of the Permission Group as “Project” to allow editing permissions for all future Sites.

Specify a file glob#

A file glob is a pattern used to identify matching files. Files globs look similar to a file path with a mix of literal text and special characters such as * and { }. In CloudCannon, you can specify read or write access to specific file globs in a Custom Permission Group. You can can specify which collections, folders, filenames, and file extensions a team member is allowed to read or edit, allowing for fine-grain control over reading and editing site files.

A read or write action is associate with each file glob. Additionally, when you specify a file glob in a permission or an exception, this will override any site:files:read and site:files:write resources selected from the resource tree. Because specifying a file glob implicitly includes the resource for read or write, the site:files checkbox in the resource tree is enabled by default.

To create a file glob, type the file path of any files you want to determine access for. For more general file paths, you can create a glob using the special characters * and { }. The * character denotes any file, while /**/ denotes any number of folder. Using the { } brackets, you can specify a list of options separated by a comma.

For example, if we add a permission to write the file glob /posts/**/*.{md,html}, CloudCannon will allow members of this Permission Group to read and edit any Markdown or HTML files within any subfolders of the Collection "Posts".

For best practices and examples of how to use file globs, please read our documentation on file glob best practices.

Default vs. Custom Permission Groups#

CloudCannon provides Default Permission Groups on every pricing plan. The Default Permission Groups (Owner, Developer, Technical Editor, and Editor) are hierarchical, meaning that each Group also contains the permissions of all Groups below it in the hierarchy. Default Permission Groups are convenient if you have fewer team members, less complex sharing requirements, or do not want to configure Custom Permission Groups.

The Default Permission Groups may not be right for you if:

• You want non-hierarchical Permission Groups.
• You want to define a subset of your Sites that team members can access (e.g., a project, all sites except the production Site, or a specific Site).
• You want to define who can perform specific actions (e.g., making vs approving pull requests, reading vs editing content, branching, inbox management).
• You want to prevent a team member from accessing existing Sites but allow them to create new Sites in your Organization, which they can edit.
• You want to define which files within a Site a team member can edit (e.g., a collection, specific file types, or a single file).

Because Default Permission Groups have a Global scope, CloudCannon will give Group members the same permissions for every Site in your Organization. Additionally, you cannot edit the permissions granted by Default Permission Groups.

You can overcome these limitations by creating Custom Permission Groups.

Custom Permission Groups vs. Site Sharing#

Using the four Global Default Permission Groups, you cannot limit access to an individual Site. You can address this problem using Site Sharing or using Custom Permission Groups.

Site Sharing allows you to invite a team member to view, edit, and publish content for a specific Site. Each Site has two permission groups for Site Sharing, identical to the Technical Editor and Editor Default Permission Groups except with a Site scope.

Custom Permission Groups do everything Site Sharing does and more. For Team and Enterprise customers, we recommend using Custom Permission Groups rather than Site Sharing for finer control over your content.