Authentication and authorization

Question and use cases

Credential headers select one authentication scheme before policy authorization.

Use this sequence to diagnose credential selection and the boundary between authentication and authorization.

Use the diagram during design review, incident diagnosis, code walkthroughs, and onboarding. It intentionally omits classes and projects unrelated to the focused question, so read it together with the source entry point and related topic pages.

This page covers only the named responsibilities and relationships; consult the relevant module documentation for capabilities not shown here.

Reading path

1. Step 1: Begin with request headers because they select HMAC, API key, or JWT bearer.
2. Step 2: Follow the selected handler until it produces a principal or fails closed.
3. Step 3: Continue into authorization; a principal is input to a permission decision, not the decision itself.

Do not skip arrow direction, numbering, or group titles: they express dependency or time direction, execution order, and responsibility boundaries. If the diagram differs from current source or accepted architecture decisions, correct the generated catalog immediately.

Legend and notation

This is a SEQUENCE diagram. Use that form to understand the layout, then test your interpretation against the source facts below.

Key relationships and design meaning

Relationship 1

Source fact: X-Signature selects HMAC, X-API-Key selects API key authentication, and all other requests fall back to JWT bearer.

Architectural meaning: Scheme selection is deterministic from credential shape, making ambiguous or mixed credential handling an explicit security concern.

Review action: Can ambiguous credentials select more than one scheme?

Relationship 2

Source fact: JWT issuer, audience, lifetime, signing key, and key ID routing are validated fail-closed.

Architectural meaning: Fail-closed JWT validation prevents partially configured environments from accepting tokens with weakened trust checks.

Review action: Are issuer, audience, lifetime, key, and tenant consistency all validated?

Relationship 3

Source fact: Authentication creates a principal; authorization still makes the permission decision.

Architectural meaning: Separating identity proof from permission evaluation allows the same principal to receive different decisions by tenant, resource, and operation.

Review action: Which authorization policy grants the requested operation?

Design review questions

Answer each question when reviewing or implementing a related change. If code, tests, or an ADR cannot support the answer, do not decide from the diagram alone.

• Can ambiguous credentials select more than one scheme?
• Are issuer, audience, lifetime, key, and tenant consistency all validated?
• Which authorization policy grants the requested operation?

How to use the answers

1. Identify the single owner of the capability or rule.
2. Confirm that dependency, call, or event direction does not reverse ownership.
3. Capture the conclusion with an automated test or repeatable command.

Boundaries and common mistakes

Boundary 1

Possessing a valid credential does not imply access to a tenant or operation.

• Do not infer: A connector in the diagram does not mean every implementation uses synchronous calls, a shared transaction, or shared data ownership.
• Review requirement: Are issuer, audience, lifetime, key, and tenant consistency all validated?

Boundary 2

Do not infer tenant identity from an untrusted header before authentication consistency checks.

• Do not infer: A connector in the diagram does not mean every implementation uses synchronous calls, a shared transaction, or shared data ownership.
• Review requirement: Which authorization policy grants the requested operation?

Source verification and regeneration

The primary verification entry point is src/Hosts/BitzOrcas.Api/Composition/AuthenticationRegistration.cs. Inspect it and its direct references before regenerating diagram assets and pages.

# Regenerate bilingual SVG, standalone HTML, and documentation pages
npm run diagrams

# Check locale pairs, references, safety attributes, accessibility, and canvas bounds
npm run verify:diagrams

# Confirm that generation changed only the intended diagrams and pages
git diff -- scripts/diagrams diagram-sources public/diagrams src/content/docs

# Verify internal links, MDX structure, and professional depth gates
npm run verify:docs
npm run audit:docs-depth

Change-completion checklist

• Responsibilities, order, states, and relationships match current source.
• Every new element helps answer this page’s question instead of turning the diagram into an inventory.
• Arrows have explicit direction and semantics without implying nonexistent synchronous or transactional guarantees.
• Chinese and English titles, labels, facts, and boundaries remain semantically equivalent.
• The diagram remains readable on narrow screens, in fullscreen, and while zoomed, with no overlap or overflow.
• Relevant architecture tests, integration tests, or verification commands have run.
• If a long-lived constraint changed, its ADR or architecture documentation is updated.

Continue reading

• Architecture overview
• All architecture diagrams
• Platform modules