django-opa-permissions

Object-level Django permissions backed by OPA (Rego) policies stored in the database, evaluated in-process via opa-golib-python-bindings — no OPA server needed.

Features

• Policies as DB objects — Policy (UUID pk, Rego source) grouped into a PolicySet via FK; a PolicySetBinding maps a Django model (ContentType) to the policyset governing it. Unbound models deny everything (superusers excepted).
• Auth backend — OpaPermissionBackend implements user.has_perm("app.view_book", obj) so Django and DRF (DjangoObjectPermissions) work out of the box. Designed for subclassing: many small hook methods (extend_input, get_builtins, is_bypass, filter_result, …).
• Minimal input document — policies receive only the user pk, app label, model name, action, and (except for browse/create) the object pk. Data is fetched from inside the policy via custom builtins (django_opa_fetch, django_opa_fetch_old, django_opa_query) — ORM-backed, no SQL.
• Browse partial evaluation — Model.objects.for_user(user) compiles the policy's filter rule with the object left unknown (OPA partial evaluation → UCAST → Django Q/Exists), filtering listings in SQL; relation traversal and $some/$all/$none quantifiers are supported. The authoritative full check (with the object pk) runs in allowed_for_user / has_perm.
• Admin policy debugger — evaluate a policyset as any (visible) user against any bound model/object: print() output inline next to the policy line, per-line coverage highlighting, the full output document as a tree, and the residual browse prefilter. No trace logs.

Install

pip install django-opa-permissions

INSTALLED_APPS = [..., "django_opa_permissions"]
AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = [
    "django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend",
    "django_opa_permissions.backends.OpaPermissionBackend",
]

Quick start

from django_opa_permissions.managers import OpaPermissionedModel

class Book(OpaPermissionedModel):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=300)
    owner = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    published = models.BooleanField(default=False)

Create a PolicySet, add a Policy, and bind it to the Book content type (all in the admin). Every policy must declare package policies; the entry points are allow (full evaluation) and filter (browse partial evaluation):

package policies

import rego.v1

# Owners may do anything with their own books.
allow if {
    obj := django_opa_fetch(input.app_label, input.model, input.object.id)
    obj.owner_id == input.user.id
}

# Anyone may view or browse published books.
allow if {
    input.action in {"view", "browse"}
    obj := django_opa_fetch(input.app_label, input.model, input.object.id)
    obj.published == true
}

# Browse prefilter: the object is UNKNOWN here — reference its columns via
# input.object; this compiles to SQL through the ORM.
filter if {
    input.object.published == true
}

filter if {
    input.object.owner_id == to_number(input.user.id)
}

Book.objects.for_user(user)          # SQL prefilter (partial evaluation)
Book.objects.allowed_for_user(user)  # prefilter + authoritative per-object pass
user.has_perm("library.view_book", book)
book.user_can(user, "change")        # or "delete", custom actions, ...
modified.user_can(user, "change", old=snapshot)  # policies may fetch both states

See docs/ for the input schema, builtins, filter-rule grammar (relation paths and quantifiers), and subclassing the backend; example_project/ is a runnable sqlite demo (python manage.py migrate && python manage.py load_example_policies && python manage.py runserver).

License

MIT