Better Auth•6d ago

Admin + Organization Plugin: Role Columns

I have a question about using the admin and organization plugins together. When using the admin plugin, it adds a role column to the user table and when using the organization plugin, it creates a member table that itself contains a role column along with a userId column that references the earlier user table. The question I have is, how should the relationship between those two distinct role columns be managed? What are the expectations?

31 Replies

Netrifier•6d ago

The admin and organisation roles are separate from each other. And as you mentioned, the admin roles are in the user schema and the organisation roles are in the member schema. Which means that admin roles are for the entire app while the organisation roles are scoped to that particular organisation means you can have diff roles for diff organisations while having certain other roles for the entire app.

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

Oh, interesting -- so the distinction is to think of the User level role column as an app-wide role regardless of organization?

Netrifier•6d ago

yes, currently there can be only one role in the user but organisation members can have multiple roles

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

That's interesting.... On that note of multiple roles though -- when calling addMember like so:

await auth.api.addMember({
    body: {
      organizationId: <org_id>,
      userId: <user_id>,
      role: "owner", // this only accepts a single, strongly typed string
    },
  });

await auth.api.addMember({
    body: {
      organizationId: <org_id>,
      userId: <user_id>,
      role: "owner", // this only accepts a single, strongly typed string
    },
  });

I can't pass an array or a comma delimited string to the addMember call

Netrifier•6d ago

yes you have to separate the roles with a comma https://www.better-auth.com/docs/plugins/organization#access-control

Organization | Better Auth

The organization plugin allows you to manage your organization's members and teams.

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

Right, what I'm saying is, the method does not accept it -- it complains Or, more precisley, TypeScript complains about it -- so should that TS complaint be ignored?

Netrifier•6d ago

means you are saying that the role is type checked with the provided roles? this might be a bug will do some searching in the source code

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

Exactly It's type-checked to match to the enumerated role-set you defined and does not accept an array or comma-delimited string value

Netrifier•6d ago

the roles are correctly split with a "," so might be a typescript thing

Netrifier•6d ago

can you do some tests with ignoring the typescript errors I will check if the types can be updated

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

Yeah, considering there is strict type-saftey in inferring the types through the config, I wonder if it might be better served to type the role value of that API call to be something like RoleSetValue[] instead of RoleSetValue or string string would obviously allow for comma-delimited entry but won't be able to guarantee the values that the user enters will match the defined set of role values Let me give it a test

Netrifier•6d ago

I was wondering the same thing

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

This is what I see in my DB after running it with comma-delimited values (despite TS complaining) which I believe is the expected outcome

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

(This is all randomly generated fake data btw 😂 )

Netrifier•6d ago

👍

Netrifier•6d ago

this is the current role type

Netrifier•6d ago

this only supports single strings which are already defined

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

Yeah, so the suspicion was correct then 👍 Just need to type that sucker to be an array of those values instead 🙂 Or perhaps both? a single typed string or an array of them? That way you have backwards compatibility and it won't be a breaking API change

Netrifier•6d ago

I believe achieving a typed string would be a bit complex but I agree that the roles should be switched to using an array type

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

Oh, I was thinking it would be a simple transition but I'm probably missing something in the equation. I thought the existing type can just be reused to express something like:

 role: ExistingType | ExistingType[];

 role: ExistingType | ExistingType[];

Netrifier•6d ago

the current type does not support the multiple roles with comma so I was referring to that comma string.

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

Ah, gotcha Yeah, I think supporting that in the API signature would be a headache Perhaps not worth the cost of maintenance if the same outcome can be achieved using a typed array

Netrifier•6d ago

the typed array would be great but not all databases support storing arrays so they still need to be stored as string separated with comma but this serialization can be handled in the adapter so this would mean a partial refactoring of the organisation plugin to switch the string to array if the better-auth team give the go ahead I am ready to make a pr

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

Would there be complaints from users for the breaking change on the signature?

Netrifier•6d ago

this would definitely be a breaking change if somehow both can be supported then it would be fine I think this would be the better option

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

This is what I'm thinking I think both can be supported since we just need to extend the current signature

Netrifier•6d ago

yes, I will do some tests and see, and if the team gives the go ahead I can make a pr

MaveriX89OP•6d ago

The cost of that would be that the addMember method would have to do a check along the lines of:

const parseRoles = (role: TypedRole | TypedRole[]) => {
  if (Array.isArray(role)) { /* join roles using comma */ }
  else /* role is a string like the existing signature supports */

const parseRoles = (role: TypedRole | TypedRole[]) => {
  if (Array.isArray(role)) { /* join roles using comma */ }
  else /* role is a string like the existing signature supports */

Netrifier•6d ago

this wouldn't be that bad and array.isarray is very fast I was thinking of defining an utility function then calling it wherever roles are needed which will increase maintainability as the logic will be in one place

Netrifier•5d ago

https://github.com/better-auth/better-auth/pull/1792 This only changes types for add member and create invitation to stop those typescript errors. These changes do not break backwards compatibility.

GitHub

fix(organization): Fix multiple role array not referenced properly ...

Added support to pass multiple roles to addMember Changed role type to InferRolesFromOption<O> | InferRolesFromOption<O>[] to stop typescript errors when using array wit...

MaveriX89OP•5d ago

Excellent!

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Admin + Organization Plugin: Role Columns

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