> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.medusajs.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
  
<AgentInstructions>

## Submitting Feedback

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</AgentInstructions>

# Protect API Routes with RBAC

This feature requires an enterprise license.

In this guide, you'll learn how to guard an API route with role-based access control (RBAC) policies using the `authorize` middleware.

## Guard a Route

The `authorize` middleware from the Medusa Framework checks the request's actor against the policies you pass to it. Add it to a route's [middlewares](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/api-routes/middlewares) to guard that route.

For example, to require the `vendor:create` policy on a custom route:

```ts title="src/api/middlewares.ts"
import {
  defineMiddlewares,
  authorize,
} from "@medusajs/framework/http"

export default defineMiddlewares({
  routes: [
    {
      matcher: "/admin/vendors",
      methods: ["POST"],
      middlewares: [
        authorize({
          resource: "vendor",
          operation: "create",
        }),
      ],
    },
  ],
})
```

The actor must hold the `vendor:create` policy through one of its roles, either directly or as a wildcard policy such as `vendor:*` or `*:*`. Otherwise, the request fails with a `403` error:

- If the request has no authenticated actor, or the actor has no roles, the error message is `Forbidden`.
- If the actor has roles that don't grant the policy, the error message lists the required policies.

When the RBAC Module isn't installed, the middleware allows every request.

To learn how to register the `vendor` resource so that its policies exist and stay type-safe, refer to the [Define Custom Policies](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/enterprise/rbac/define-policies) guide.

### Authenticate Routes Outside /admin

Medusa authenticates the routes under `/admin` for you. For a custom route outside `/admin`, add the `authenticate` middleware before `authorize`. Otherwise, the request has no actor and `authorize` rejects it with a `403` error.

For example:

```ts title="src/api/middlewares.ts"
import {
  authenticate,
  authorize,
  defineMiddlewares,
} from "@medusajs/framework/http"

export default defineMiddlewares({
  routes: [
    {
      matcher: "/vendors/products",
      methods: ["POST"],
      middlewares: [
        authenticate("vendor_admin", ["bearer", "session"]),
        authorize({
          resource: "product",
          operation: "create",
        }),
      ],
    },
  ],
})
```

To resolve the roles of a custom actor type such as `vendor_admin`, you also need to configure it in the RBAC Module's `actors` option. Learn more in the [Module Options](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/enterprise/rbac/module-options#actors) guide.

### Require Multiple Policies

Pass an array to `authorize` to require every policy in it.

For example, to guard a route that reads a product and its vendor:

```ts title="src/api/middlewares.ts"
authorize([
  { resource: "vendor", operation: "read" },
  { resource: "product", operation: "read" },
])
```

You can also pass an array of operations for a single resource:

```ts title="src/api/middlewares.ts"
authorize({
  resource: "vendor",
  operation: ["read", "update"],
})
```

***

## The Request's RBAC Context

The middleware reads from and writes to `req.rbac_context`, which holds four properties:

- scope: (\`object\`) The \`RbacScope\` object identifying the scope the request acts within. Medusa never sets it. You set it in a custom middleware as explained in the \[Set the Scope Before authorize]\(#set-the-scope-before-authorize) section. When it isn't set, Medusa considers only unscoped role assignments while resolving the actor's roles.

  - type: (\`string\`) The scope's type, such as \`vendor\`.

  - id: (\`string\`) The ID of the scope entity's record, such as \`ven\_123\`.
- policies: (\`object\[]\`) The \`PolicyAction\` objects guarding the request. Each \`authorize\` middleware the request passes through appends its own policies to this array before it checks them.

  - resource: (\`string\`) The resource the policy governs, such as \`product\`, or the wildcard \`\*\`.

  - operation: (\`string\` \\| \`string\[]\`) The operation, or operations, on that resource, such as \`read\`, or the wildcard \`\*\`.
- role\_ids: (\`string\[]\`) The IDs of the roles the middleware resolved for the actor. The middleware sets this after a successful check, so the middlewares after it, such as the query config middleware, reuse the roles instead of resolving them again.
- permissions: (\`string\[]\`) The \`resource:operation\` permissions the actor's resolved roles grant, as an array of strings. The middleware sets this after a successful check, so the route handler and the middlewares after it can read it. Wildcards appear as they are stored, such as \`product:\*\`.

For example, to read the authenticated user's permissions in a route handler:

```ts title="src/api/admin/vendors/route.ts"
import {
  AuthenticatedMedusaRequest,
  MedusaResponse,
} from "@medusajs/framework/http"

export const POST = async (
  req: AuthenticatedMedusaRequest,
  res: MedusaResponse
) => {
  const canDelete =
    req.rbac_context?.permissions?.includes("vendor:delete")

  res.json({ can_delete: !!canDelete })
}
```

Since `permissions` lists wildcards as they're stored, `includes("vendor:delete")` returns `false` for an actor that holds `vendor:*` or `*:*`. To check a permission while taking wildcards into account, use `hasPermission` instead.

### Check Permissions with hasPermission

The `hasPermission` function exported from `@medusajs/framework` checks whether roles grant one or more policies, including through wildcard policies. Pass it the role IDs that the route's `authorize` middleware resolved:

```ts title="src/api/admin/vendors/route.ts"
import { hasPermission } from "@medusajs/framework"
import {
  AuthenticatedMedusaRequest,
  MedusaResponse,
} from "@medusajs/framework/http"

export const POST = async (
  req: AuthenticatedMedusaRequest,
  res: MedusaResponse
) => {
  const canDelete = await hasPermission({
    roles: req.rbac_context?.role_ids ?? [],
    actions: { resource: "vendor", operation: "delete" },
    container: req.scope,
  })

  res.json({ can_delete: canDelete })
}
```

`hasPermission` returns `true` only if the roles grant every policy you pass in `actions`. When the RBAC Module isn't installed, it always returns `true`.

***

## Middleware Order

The `authorize` middleware sits between two other kinds of middlewares, so the order you register them in matters.

### Set the Scope Before authorize

`authorize` resolves the actor's roles for the scope in `req.rbac_context.scope`. A middleware that sets the scope must run before it. Refer to the [Middlewares](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/api-routes/middlewares) documentation to learn how to write and register a middleware.

Medusa runs the middlewares of a route in the order you list them. So, add the middleware that sets the scope before `authorize` in the same `middlewares` array:

```ts title="src/api/middlewares.ts"
import {
  defineMiddlewares,
  authorize,
} from "@medusajs/framework/http"

export default defineMiddlewares({
  routes: [
    {
      matcher: "/admin/vendors",
      methods: ["POST"],
      middlewares: [
        (req, res, next) => {
          req.rbac_context = {
            ...req.rbac_context,
            scope: {
              type: "vendor",
              id: req.headers["x-vendor-id"] as string,
            },
          }
          return next()
        },
        authorize({
          resource: "vendor",
          operation: "create",
        }),
      ],
    },
  ],
})
```

In this example, the middleware reads the `x-vendor-id` header and sets the scope to that vendor before `authorize` runs.

Without a scope, `authorize` considers only the actor's unscoped role assignments.

### Share a Scope Middleware Across Routes

To set the scope for many routes at once, register the scope middleware on a less specific matcher, such as a wildcard matcher. Medusa [sorts route middlewares](https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/api-routes/middlewares#middlewares-sorting) so that wildcard matchers run before static matchers. So, the scope middleware runs before the `authorize` middleware of each route:

```ts title="src/api/middlewares.ts"
import {
  defineMiddlewares,
  authorize,
} from "@medusajs/framework/http"

export default defineMiddlewares({
  routes: [
    {
      matcher: "/admin/vendors*",
      middlewares: [
        (req, res, next) => {
          req.rbac_context = {
            ...req.rbac_context,
            scope: {
              type: "vendor",
              id: req.headers["x-vendor-id"] as string,
            },
          }
          return next()
        },
      ],
    },
    {
      matcher: "/admin/vendors",
      methods: ["POST"],
      middlewares: [
        authorize({
          resource: "vendor",
          operation: "create",
        }),
      ],
    },
  ],
})
```

Learn more about scopes in the [Scopes](https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/enterprise/rbac/scopes) guide.

***

## Field-Level Filtering

When a request asks for fields of a related resource that the actor can't read, Medusa removes those fields from the response instead of rejecting the request. This keeps a route usable by actors with partial access.

Medusa walks each requested field path, maps every segment to the resource it belongs to, and checks the actor's `read` policy on it. A request for `id,vendor.name` from an actor without the `vendor:read` policy returns the `id` field and drops `vendor.name`.

Medusa only checks resources that have at least one policy stored in the database. Fields of a resource without any policy are always returned.

Field-level filtering applies automatically when the RBAC Module is installed and the route meets the following conditions:

- The route uses the `authorize` middleware before the `validateAndTransformQuery` middleware, as explained in the next section.
- The query configuration passed to `validateAndTransformQuery` sets the `entity` property.

### Register Query Config Middlewares After authorize

The `validateAndTransformQuery` middleware reads `req.rbac_context.policies` to filter the fields the request asks for. Since `authorize` records the policies on the request, register `validateAndTransformQuery` after it in the same `middlewares` array:

```ts title="src/api/middlewares.ts"
middlewares: [
  authorize({
    resource: "vendor",
    operation: "read",
  }),
  validateAndTransformQuery(GetVendorsSchema, {
    entity: "vendor",
    defaults: ["id", "name"],
    isList: true,
  }),
]
```

If you register the query config middleware first, it finds no policies on the request and applies no field filtering.


---

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