Authorization is an optional seam, not a role system. The application supplies a policy module; snodo calls it and enforces the decision.

defmodule MyApp.Policy do
  @behaviour Snodo.Authorization

  @impl true
  def authorize(_phase, %Snodo.Authorization.Component{kind: :tool, name: "admin_reset"}, context, _options) do
    if admin?(context.auth), do: :ok, else: {:error, Snodo.Error.authorization(-32_003, "Not permitted")}
  end

  def authorize(_phase, _component, _context, _options), do: :ok

  defp admin?(%{"role" => "admin"}), do: true
  defp admin?(_auth), do: false
end

defmodule MyApp.Server do
  use Snodo.Server,
    name: "my-server",
    version: "1.0.0",
    authorization: {MyApp.Policy, []}
end

Where it applies

The seam sits inside the router, below every transport and dialect, so direct dispatch, stdio, the native HTTP listener, and Plug share one decision.

PhaseOperationsEffect of a refusal
:discoverytools/list, prompts/list, resources/list, resources/templates/listthe component is left out of the list
:invocationtools/call, prompts/get, resources/read, completion/completethe request fails with the policy's own Snodo.Error, before argument validation and before any application callback

Filtering happens before paging, so a cursor belongs to the catalog that context can see and expires if replayed against a different one.

The Tasks extension runs the :invocation check, and argument validation, when it accepts a task-augmented tools/call, before it stores anything. Work that a durable executor later runs has already passed the check. Inside the task worker, context.request_method is still "tools/call".

What it does not do

  • It does not authenticate. context.auth is whatever the transport or application put there: a Plug pipeline, or auth: on Snodo.Client.direct/2 (Snodo.Test.Assertions.client_as/3) in tests.
  • It defines no roles, scopes, or refusal codes. The application chooses the code (JSON-RPC reserves -32000 to -32099 for implementation-defined errors). For OAuth scopes, snodo_oauth ships Snodo.OAuth.ResourceServer.ScopePolicy, a policy keyed on the scopes a bearer token grants.
  • It does not log. The callback is the place to record refusals.
  • It does not filter list-changed notifications, which carry no component data. Subscription sources receive the same context for anything else.

A subscriptions/listen request's resourceSubscriptions pass through the :invocation check as reads: a resource the caller may not read is left out of the accepted filter, so its updates are never delivered. A URI that no resource matches is kept, since there is no component to decide on.

With a policy, the tools, prompts, and resources caches must use scope "private": results differ per principal, and a public hint would let a shared cache hand one principal's result to another. Snodo.Server.Runtime.new/1 raises otherwise.

A policy that raises or returns anything else is a fault: the operation fails rather than silently emptying a catalog. The callback runs once per listed component, so keep it cheap.

Example

examples/23_authorization.exs.