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https://github.com/authzed/spicedb

Open Source, Google Zanzibar-inspired database for scalably storing and querying fine-grained authorization data
https://github.com/authzed/spicedb

abac acl ciam cloud-native database distributed-systems entitlements fga fine-grained-access-control grpc kubernetes latency permissions production rbac rebac scale security security-tools zanzibar

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Open Source, Google Zanzibar-inspired database for scalably storing and querying fine-grained authorization data

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README 

        


    

        spicedb logo

    

    

        spicedb Logo

    






  SpiceDB sets the standard for authorization that scales.

  

Scale with


  Traffic • Dev Velocity • Functionality • Geography






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## What is SpiceDB?



spicedb diagram

spicedb diagram



SpiceDB is the most mature open source project inspired by Google's internal authorization system: [Zanzibar].



As of 2021, [broken access control became the #1 threat to web security according to OWASP][owasp].

With SpiceDB, platform teams are armed with the same techniques for stopping this threat that the hyperscale tech companies have been doing for years behind closed doors.



Similar to a relational database, developers define a schema, write data to the database, and query that data in various ways.

However, unlike relational databases that use general-purpose SQL, SpiceDB exposes a gRPC API specifcally optimized for authorizing actions in your systems.



Because SpiceDB self-contains data and logic for used for authorization, it is often ran as a centralized service shared across product suites and microservice architectures.



SpiceDB is focused purely on *authorization* and is designed to be fully agnostic to *authentication* solutions/identity providers.



[owasp]: https://owasp.org/Top10/A01_2021-Broken_Access_Control/



### What is Google Zanzibar?



In 2019, Google released the paper "[Zanzibar: Google's Consistent, Global Authorization System][zanzibar]" providing the original inspiration for SpiceDB.

The paper presents the design, implementation, and deployment of, Zanzibar, Google's internal system for storing and evaluating access control lists.

Originally designed for [Google+ Circles][circles], Zanzibar now sits at the core Google's entire product suite (Calendar, Drive, Maps, Photos, YouTube) and powers the Google Cloud IAM service.



While SpiceDB has gone on to innovate well beyond the functionality outlined in the paper, development of SpiceDB aims to always remain faithful to the paper's values and goals.



[zanzibar]: https://authzed.com/zanzibar

[circles]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google+#Circles



### Why SpiceDB?



- [**World-class engineering**][about]: painstakingly built by experts that pioneered the cloud-native ecosystem

- [**Authentic design**][zanzibar]: mature and feature-complete implementation of Google's Zanzibar paper

- [**Proven in production**][1M]: 5ms p95 when scaled to millions of queries/s, billions of relationships

- [**Global consistency**][consistency]: consistency configured per-request unlocks correctness while maintaining performance

- [**Multi-paradigm**][caveats]: caveated relationships combine the best concepts in authorization: ABAC & ReBAC

- [**Safety in tooling**][tooling]: designs schemas with real-time validation or validate in your CI/CD workflow

- [**Reverse Indexes**][reverse-indexes]: queries for "What can `subject` do?", "Who can access `resource`?"



[about]: https://authzed.com/why-authzed

[1M]: https://authzed.com/blog/google-scale-authorization

[caveats]: https://netflixtechblog.com/abac-on-spicedb-enabling-netflixs-complex-identity-types-c118f374fa89

[tooling]: https://authzed.com/docs/spicedb/modeling/validation-testing-debugging

[reverse-indexes]: https://authzed.com/docs/spicedb/getting-started/faq#what-is-a-reverse-index

[consistency]: https://authzed.com/docs/spicedb/concepts/consistency



### Who uses SpiceDB?



SpiceDB is a powerful tool in a variety of domains and in organizations of all sizes; we've chosen to highlight a few interesting community members:



- [IBM's AI Data & Model Factory Platform](https://youtu.be/4K2a9HcRhXA)

- [Red Hat's Insights Platform](https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/management/insights)

- [GitPod](https://github.com/gitpod-io/gitpod/issues/15632)

- [TubiTV China (中文)](https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/685603356)

- [DMM Online Salon (日本語)](https://inside.dmm.com/articles/salon-datebase-migration-challenges/)



Beyond the community, you can also read [customer stories][stories] for commercial usage of SpiceDB.



[stories]: https://authzed.com/customers



## Joining the Community



Join our fellow contributors from companies such as github logo GitHub, adobe logo Adobe, google logo Google, fastly logo Fastly, plaid logo Plaid, red hat logo Red Hat, and reddit logo Reddit.



SpiceDB is a community project where everyone is invited to participate and [feel welcomed].

While the project has a technical goal, participation is not restricted to those with code contributions.



[CONTRIBUTING.md] documents communication, contribution flow, legal requirements, and common tasks when contributing to the project.



You can find issues by priority: [Urgent], [High], [Medium], [Low], [Maybe].

There are also [good first issues].



Our [documentation] is also [open source][oss-docs] if you'd like to clarify anything you find confusing.



[feel welcomed]: CODE-OF-CONDUCT.md

[CONTRIBUTING.md]: CONTRIBUTING.md

[Urgent]: https://github.com/authzed/spicedb/labels/priority%2F0%20urgent

[High]: https://github.com/authzed/spicedb/labels/priority%2F1%20high

[Medium]: https://github.com/authzed/spicedb/labels/priority%2F2%20medium

[Low]: https://github.com/authzed/spicedb/labels/priority%2F3%20low

[Maybe]: https://github.com/authzed/spicedb/labels/priority%2F4%20maybe

[good first issues]: https://github.com/authzed/spicedb/labels/hint%2Fgood%20first%20issue

[documentation]: https://authzed.com/docs

[oss-docs]: https://github.com/authzed/docs



## Getting Started



### Familiarizing yourself with our learning materials



- Ask questions via [GitHub Discussions] or our [Community Discord]

- Read [blog posts] from the Authzed team describing the project and major announcements

- Watch our [YouTube videos] about SpiceDB, modeling schemas, leveraging CNCF projects, and more

- Explore the [SpiceDB Awesome List] that enumerates official and third-party projects built by the community

- Reference [community examples] for demo environments, integration testing, CI pipelines, and writing schemas



[GitHub Discussions]: https://github.com/orgs/authzed/discussions/new?category=q-a

[Community Discord]: https://authzed.com/discord

[blog posts]: https://authzed.com/blog

[SpiceDB Awesome List]: https://github.com/authzed/awesome-spicedb

[YouTube videos]: https://www.youtube.com/@authzed

[community examples]: https://github.com/authzed/examples



### Installing the binary



Binary releases are available for Linux, macOS, and Windows on AMD64 and ARM64 architectures.



[Homebrew] users for both macOS and Linux can install the latest binary releases of SpiceDB and [zed] using the official tap:



```command

brew install authzed/tap/spicedb authzed/tap/zed

```



[Debian-based Linux] users can install SpiceDB packages by adding a new APT source:



```command

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y curl ca-certificates gpg

curl https://pkg.authzed.com/apt/gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -

sudo echo "deb https://pkg.authzed.com/apt/ * *" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/fury.list

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y spicedb zed

```



[RPM-based Linux] users can install SpiceDB packages by adding a new YUM repository:



```command

sudo cat << EOF >> /etc/yum.repos.d/Authzed-Fury.repo

[authzed-fury]

name=AuthZed Fury Repository

baseurl=https://pkg.authzed.com/yum/

enabled=1

gpgcheck=0

EOF

sudo dnf install -y spicedb zed

```



[zed]: https://github.com/authzed/zed

[homebrew]: https://docs.authzed.com/spicedb/installing#brew

[Debian-based Linux]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions#Debian-based

[RPM-based Linux]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions#RPM-based

  

### Running a container



Container images are available for AMD64 and ARM64 architectures on the following registries:



- [authzed/spicedb](https://hub.docker.com/r/authzed/spicedb)

- [ghcr.io/authzed/spicedb](https://github.com/authzed/spicedb/pkgs/container/spicedb)

- [quay.io/authzed/spicedb](https://quay.io/authzed/spicedb)



[Docker] users can run the latest SpiceDB container with the following:



```command

docker run --rm -p 50051:50051 authzed/spicedb serve --grpc-preshared-key "somerandomkeyhere"

```



SpiceDB containers use [Chainguard Images] to ship the bare minimum userspace which is a huge boon to security, but can complicate debugging.

If you want to execute a user session into a running SpiceDB container and install packages, you can use one of our debug images.



Appending `-debug` to any tag will provide you an image that has a userspace with debug tooling:



```command

docker run --rm -ti --entrypoint sh authzed/spicedb:latest-debug

```



Containers are also available for each git commit to the `main` branch under `${REGISTRY}/authzed/spicedb-git:${COMMIT}`.



[Docker]: https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/

[Chainguard Images]: https://github.com/chainguard-images/images

  

### Deploying to Kubernetes



Production Kubernetes users should be relying on a stable release of the [SpiceDB Operator].

The Operator enforces not only best practices, but orchestrates SpiceDB updates without downtime.



If you're only experimenting, feel free to try out one of our community-maintained [examples] for [testing SpiceDB on Kubernetes]:



```command

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/authzed/examples/main/kubernetes/example.yaml

```



[examples]: https://github.com/authzed/examples

[SpiceDB Operator]: https://github.com/authzed/spicedb-operator

[testing SpiceDB on Kubernetes]: https://github.com/authzed/examples/tree/main/kubernetes



### Developing your own schema



You can try both SpiceDB and zed entirely in your browser in the [hosted Playground] thanks to the power of WebAssembly.

The [Playground app is open source] and can also be self-hosted.



If you don't want to start with the examples loadable from the Playground, you can follow a guide for [developing a schema] or review the the schema language [design documentation].



Watch the SpiceDB primer video to get started with schema development:



SpiceDB Primer YouTube Thumbnail



[hosted Playground]: https://play.authzed.com

[Playground app is open source]: https://github.com/authzed/playground

[developing a schema]: https://docs.authzed.com/guides/schema

[design documentation]: https://docs.authzed.com/reference/schema-lang



### Trying out the API



For debugging or getting started, we recommend [installing zed], the official command-line client.

The [Playground] also has a tab for experimenting with zed all from within your browser.



When it's time to write code, we recommend using one of the [existing client libraries] whether it's official or community-maintained.



Because every millisecond counts, we recommend using libraries that leverage the gRPC API for production workloads.



To get an understanding of integrating an application with SpiceDB, you can follow the [Protecting Your First App] guide or review API documentation on the [Buf Registry] or [Postman].



[installing zed]: https://authzed.com/docs/spicedb/getting-started/installing-zed

[playground]: https://play.authzed.com

[existing client libraries]: https://github.com/authzed/awesome-spicedb#clients

[Protecting Your First App]: https://docs.authzed.com/guides/first-app

[Buf Registry]: https://buf.build/authzed/api/docs

[Postman]: https://www.postman.com/authzed/workspace/spicedb/overview



## Acknowledgements



SpiceDB is a community project fueled by contributions from both organizations and individuals.

We appreciate all contributions, large and small, and would like to thank all those involved.



In addition, we'd like to highlight a few notable contributions:



- github logo The GitHub Authorization Team for implementing and contributing the MySQL datastore

- netflix logo The Netflix Authorization Team for sponsoring and being a design partner for caveats

- equinix logo The Equinix Metal Team for sponsoring our benchmarking hardware