Engineering
All articles tagged Engineering.
Authentication vs Authorization
Authentication vs authorization explained. AuthN verifies who a user is, AuthZ decides what they can do. This guide covers ID and access tokens, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, SAML, SSO, RBAC and ABAC, the key differences between the two, and the mistakes teams make building them.
Agent skill for building Cerbos Synapse extensions
A new agent skill that builds Cerbos Synapse extensions for you. Describe what you want to enrich, map, or expose, and it picks the extension kind and runtime, scaffolds the files, wires config, and runs it against a local PDP. Covers CEL, Starlark, and WASM in Go, TypeScript, or Python.
Mapping business requirements to authorization policy for e-commerce
A practical walkthrough of how e-commerce business rules become authorization policy. Covers customer data access, vendor product management, and order lifecycle control using RBAC, ABAC, and PBAC in Cerbos. Includes derived roles, attribute conditions, time-based rules, and a built-in test framework to verify each policy before production.
Governing AI agents at the gateway with Cerbos and agentgateway
How to govern AI agents at the gateway with agentgateway and Cerbos. This covers the three authorization questions on every agent hop, which model an identity can call, which MCP servers and tools it can open, and what a tool call is actually asking for, all from one policy bundle over Envoy ext_authz.
How to secure AI agents and MCP tools at the gateway with LiteLLM and Cerbos
Add policy-based authorization to a LiteLLM AI gateway with Cerbos. Control which models each user or agent can call, hide tools the caller shouldn't see, and bind MCP tool arguments to caller attributes, all enforced at the proxy with no application changes.
Agent skill for writing authorization policies in Claude Code
Claude Code lets engineers draft authorization policies in plain English, right in the terminal. This guide covers installing the policy skill through the plugin marketplace, invoking it with /cerbos-policy, what a session looks like, validating against the real Cerbos compiler in Docker, and where human review still matters.
Mapping business requirements to authorization policy for automotive
Authorization in enterprise automotive platforms covers more than roles. This guide explains why RBAC fails for software-defined vehicles, how ABAC and policy-as-code govern OTA updates, ECU diagnostics, and supplier access, and how Cerbos handles workforce, partner, customer, and non-human identities across the vehicle lifecycle.
Agent skill for writing authorization policies in Claude Desktop
Claude Desktop lets product, security, and engineering leads draft Cerbos authorization policies in plain English without writing YAML. This guide walks through installing the Cerbos policy skill, connecting your specs via MCP, validating against the real compiler, and producing a complete policy bundle ready for review and PR.
Query plan adapter for Elasticsearch (Java)
Externalized authorization with Cerbos. Translate policies into native Elasticsearch Query DSL using the PlanResources API. Push access control to the database layer, avoid post-fetch filtering, and scale secure search with nested query support and operator overrides.
Integrating Cerbos with Kong: A how-to guide for API gateway authorization
Learn how to integrate Cerbos with Kong to offload authorization decisions from your services and centralize policy enforcement at the gateway. This hands-on guide walks through a real setup using Docker Compose, custom plugins, and fine-grained access policies to secure every API request.
Tokens are authorization decisions: a guide to policy-driven token issuance
Tokens are authorization decisions, and most identity teams don't manage them like one. This article explains policy-driven token issuance, the three patterns Gartner calls Authorization Management Platforms, what AuthZEN changes, and how to govern AI agent tokens without hardcoding logic into the IdP.
Query plan adapter for Convex
Externalized authorization with Cerbos moves access control into policy files and pushes filtering to the data layer. Learn how the PlanResources API and a new Convex adapter generate efficient, secure queries without row-by-row checks.
Query plan adapter for Drizzle ORM
Externalized authorization with Cerbos PlanResources API and Drizzle ORM. Generate efficient, policy-driven SQL filters from query plans. Avoid row-by-row checks, reduce database I/O, and enforce scalable access control at the query layer with @cerbos/orm-drizzle.
From maps to bitmaps (and from bitmaps to bitmaps)
Inside the Cerbos PDP performance rewrite that took authorization decisions from 43.8 µs to 6.6 µs. This post walks through three iterations of the rule table index, why roaring bitmaps weren't the right fit, and how a custom bitmap with a meta layer beat both the previous index and roaring.
Query plan adapter for LangChain.js and ChromaDB
Enforce fine-grained authorization in RAG apps with Cerbos and ChromaDB. Learn how @cerbos/langchain-chromadb converts Cerbos query plans into ChromaDB filters, so vector search respects access policies at retrieval time and prevents unauthorized data from reaching your LLM.
Non-Human Identity management still has a blind spot
Non-human identity management today focuses on discovery, inventory, and credential rotation. This guide covers why runtime authorization is the missing layer, how overprivileged NHIs create risk at scale, and how to enforce fine-grained, policy-based access control for every service-to-service request.
Agent skill for writing authorization policies
Writing authorization policies from a blank file is slow. The Cerbos agent skill handles the drafting for you, asking clarifying questions in plain English before generating a full Cerbos policy bundle with schemas, roles, resource policies, and tests. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and more.
How to add authorization to legacy applications without code changes
Learn how to add authorization to legacy applications without modifying a single line of code. This guide covers the gateway pattern with Cerbos Synapse and Envoy, route-level policy enforcement, device posture checks, audit trail coverage, and a phased path from zero visibility to full authorization governance.