Glossary

RBAC (Role-Based Access Control)

Access-control model where permissions are granted to roles, and users inherit permissions by being assigned to roles.

Definition

Role-Based Access Control is an authorization model where permissions to perform operations are assigned to roles (admin, manager, viewer, billing-admin, etc.) and users acquire those permissions by being assigned to one or more roles. Modern RBAC implementations layer in resource-scoped permissions (a user is admin of this project but viewer of that one), role hierarchies (manager inherits from viewer), and policy engines for attribute-based extensions (ABAC).

Why it matters

Most SaaS applications outgrow simple flat role lists by year two. Designing RBAC with roles as data (not enums), supporting custom roles and resource scoping, is what makes the system maintainable when enterprise customers ask for tenant-specific roles.

See also

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