Critic

Critic inserts an easily verifiable authorization layer into your MVC application using resource policies.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'critic'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install critic

Usage

Policies

A policy contains authorization logic for a resource and an authenticated subject.

# app/policies/post_policy.rb
class PostPolicy
  include Critic::Policy
end

There are two types of methods:

• action - determines if subject is authorized to perform a specific operation on the resource
• scope - returns a list of resources available to the subject

The default scope is index but it can be overridden by specifying .scope.

# app/policies/post_policy.rb
class PostPolicy
  include Critic::Policy

  # set default scope
  self.scope = :author_index

  # now default scope
  def author_index
    resource.where(author_id: subject.id)
  end

  # no longer the default scope
  def index
    resource.order(:created_at)
  end
end

Actions

The most basic actions return true or false to indicate the authorization status.

# app/policies/post_policy.rb
class PostPolicy
  include Critic::Policy

  def update?
    !resource.locked? &&
      resource.published_at.present?
  end
end

This policy will only allow updates if the post is not locked.

Verify authorization using #authorize.

Post = Struct.new(:locked)
User = Struct.new

PostPolicy.authorize(:update?, User.new, Post.new(false)).granted? #=> true
PostPolicy.authorize(:update?, User.new, Post.new(true)).granted? #=> false

Authorization Result

Returning a String from your action is interpreted as a failure. The String is added to the messages of the authorization.

Post = Struct.new(:author_id)
User = Struct.new(:id)

class PostPolicy
  include Critic::Policy

  def destroy?
    return true if resource.author_id == subject.id
    "Cannot destroy Post: This post is authored by #{resource.author_id}"
  end
end

authorization = PostPolicy.authorize(destroy?, User.new(1), Post.new(2))
authorization.granted? #=> false
authorization.messages #=> ["Cannot destroy Post: This post is authored by 2"']

halt can be used to indicate early failure. The argument provided to halt becomes the result of the authorization.

Post = Struct.new(:author_id)
User = Struct.new(:id)

class PostPolicy
  include Critic::Policy

  def destroy?
    if resource.author_id != subject.id
      halt "Cannot destroy Post: This post is authored by #{resource.author_id}"
    end
    true
  end
end

authorization = PostPolicy.authorize(destroy?, User.new(1), Post.new(2))
authorization.granted? #=> false
authorization.messages #=> ["Cannot destroy Post: This post is authored by 2"']

halt(true) indicates immediate success.

Post = Struct.new(:author_id)
User = Struct.new(:id)

class PostPolicy
  include Critic::Policy

  def destroy?
    check_ownership
    false
  end

  private

  def check_ownership
    halt(true) if resource.author_id == subject.id
  end
end

authorization = PostPolicy.authorize(destroy?, User.new(1), Post.new(2))
authorization.granted? #=> false
authorization.messages #=> ["Cannot destroy Post: This post is authored by 2"']

Scopes

Scopes treat resource as a starting point and return a restricted set of associated resources. Policies can have any number of scopes. The default scope is #index.

# app/policies/post_policy.rb
class PostPolicy
  include Critic::Policy

  def index
    resource.where(deleted_at: nil, author_id: subject.id)
  end
end

Verify authorization using #authorize.

Post = Class.new(ActiveRecord::Base)
User = Struct.new

authorization = PostPolicy.authorize(index, User.new, Post.new(false))
authorization.granted? #=> true
authorization.result #=> <#ActiveRecord::Relation..>

Convention

It can be a useful convention to add a ? suffix to your action methods. This allows a clear separation between actions and scopes. All other methods should be protected, similar to Rails controller.

# app/policies/post_policy.rb
class PostPolicy
  include Critic::Policy

  # default scope
  def index
    resource.where(published: true)
  end

  # custom scope
  def author_index
    resource.where(author_id: subject.id)
  end

  # action
  def show?
    (post.draft? && authored_post?) || post.published?
  end

  protected

  alias post resource

  def authored_post?
    subject == post.author
  end
end

Controller

Controllers are the primary consumer of policies. Controllers ask the policy if an authenticated subject is authorized to perform a specific action on a specific resource.

Actions

In Rails, the policy action is inferred from params[:action] which corresponds to the controller action method name.

When authorize fails, a Critic::AuthorizationDenied exception is raised with reference to the performed authorization.

# app/controllers/post_controller.rb
class PostController < ApplicationController
  include Critic::Controller

  rescue_from Critic::AuthorizationDenied do |exception|
    messages = exception.authorization.messages || exception.message
    render json: {errors: [messages]}, status: :unauthorized
  end

  def update
    post = Post.find(params[:id])
    authorize post # calls PostPolicy#update

    render json: post
  end
end

When action cannot be inferred, pass the intended action to authorize.

# app/controllers/post_controller.rb
class PostController < Sinatra::Base
  include Critic::Controller

  error Critic::AuthorizationDenied do |exception|
    messages = exception.authorization.messages || exception.message

    body {errors: [*messages]}
    halt 403
  end

  put '/posts/:id' do |id|
    post = Post.find(id)
    authorize post, :update

    post.to_json
  end
end

Gentle

Calling authorized? returns true or false instead of raising an exception.

# app/controllers/post_controller.rb
class PostController < Sinatra::Base
  include Critic::Controller

  put '/posts/:id' do |id|
    post = Post.find(id)

    halt(403) unless authorized?(post, :update)

    post.to_json
  end
end

Verify authorization

verify_authorized enforces that the request was authorized before the response is returned. A Critic::AuthorizationMissing error is raised in this case. A request is authorized if authorized?, authorize or authorizing! is called before the response is returned.

# app/controllers/post_controller.rb
class PostController < Sinatra::Base
  include Critic::Controller

  verify_authorized

  error Critic::AuthorizationMissing do |exception|
    # notify developers that something has gone horribly wrong
    halt 503
  end

  put '/posts/:id' do |id|
    post = Post.find(id)

    post.to_json
  end
end

This check can be artificially skipped calling authorizing!.

# app/controllers/invitation_controller.rb
class InvitationController < Sinatra::Base
  include Critic::Controller

  verify_authorized

  post '/invitation/accept/code' do |code|
    invitation = Invitiation.find_by(code: code)

    invitation.accept!
    authorizing! # Skip authorization check

    redirect '/'
  end
end

Scopes

Use authorize_scope and provide the base scope. The return value is the result.

# app/controllers/post_controller.rb
class PostController < Sinatra::Base
  include Critic::Controller

  get '/customers/:customer_id/posts' do |customer_id|
    posts =
      authorize_scope(Post.where(customer_id: customer_id))

    posts.to_json
  end
end

Custom indexes can be used by passing an action parameter.

# app/controllers/post_controller.rb
class PostController < Sinatra::Base
  include Critic::Controller

  get '/posts' d
    posts =
      authorize_scope(Post, action: :custom_index)

    posts.to_json
  end
end

Custom subject

By default, the policy's subject is referenced by current_user. Override critic to customize.

# app/controllers/application_controller.rb
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  include Critic::Controller

  protected

  def critic
    token
  end
end

Custom policy

The default policy for a resource is referenced by the resoure class name. For instance, Critic will look for a PostPolicy for a Post.new object. You can set a custom policy for the entire controller by overriding the policy method.

# app/controllers/post_controller.rb
class PostController < ActionController::Base
  include Critic::Controller

  protected

  def policy(_resource)
    V2::PostPolicy
  end
end

You can also provide a specific policy when calling authorize

# app/controllers/post_controller.rb
class PostController < ActionController::Base
  include Critic::Controller

  def show
    post = Post.find(params[:id])
    authorize post, policy: V2::PostPolicy

    render json: post
  end
end

Testing

bundle exec rake spec

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/[USERNAME]/critic.