Orchestration Cluster authorization

Camunda 8's Orchestration Cluster provides a fine-grained authorization system for controlling access to web components and APIs.

About Orchestration Cluster authorization

This system only applies to the following Orchestration Cluster components:

• Zeebe
• Identity
• Operate
• Tasklist
• Orchestration Cluster APIs

note

These authorizations do not apply to other Camunda services, such as Web Modeler or Optimize.

How authorization works

The authorization system is built on the principle of least privilege.

• When enabled, no access is granted by default, and all permissions must be explicitly assigned.
• There are no "deny" rules – if a permission is not explicitly granted, access is denied.

This model is enforced across both web components and API requests.

Owners, resources, and permissions

At its core, an authorization grants an owner specific permissions on a resource. For example:

• User john.doe can be authorized to create new users.
• Group devOps can be authorized to delete the group sales.
• Role processOwner can be authorized to deploy and run all processes.

Owners

An owner is an entity that receives permissions. An authorization can be assigned to any of the following owner types:

• User
• Group
• Role
• Client
• Mapping rule

Resources

A resource is an object that users interact with and that needs to be secured. Each resource has a unique set of permissions that can be granted.

Examples of resources:

• Process definition
• Decision definition
• System
• User

Permissions

A permission is a specific action that an owner is allowed to perform on a resource. Permissions are unique to each resource type.

For example, a Process Definition resource has a CREATE_PROCESS_INSTANCE permission, while a User resource has a DELETE permission.

Available resources

The following table lists all resources that support authorization in the Orchestration Cluster (Zeebe, Operate, Tasklist, Orchestration Cluster APIs), as well as the available permissions per resource.

Resource type	Resource key example	Resource key type	Supported permissions
Authorization	*	All authorizations	CREATE, READ, UPDATE, DELETE
Batch	*	All batches	CREATE, CREATE_BATCH_OPERATION_CANCEL_PROCESS_INSTANCE, CREATE_BATCH_OPERATION_DELETE_PROCESS_INSTANCE, CREATE_BATCH_OPERATION_MIGRATE_PROCESS_INSTANCE, CREATE_BATCH_OPERATION_MODIFY_PROCESS_INSTANCE, CREATE_BATCH_OPERATION_RESOLVE_INCIDENT, CREATE_BATCH_OPERATION_DELETE_DECISION_INSTANCE, CREATE_BATCH_OPERATION_DELETE_DECISION_DEFINITION, CREATE_BATCH_OPERATION_DELETE_PROCESS_DEFINITION, READ, UPDATE
Component	*, operate, tasklist, identity	All components, component name	ACCESS
Decision Definition	*, order_decision	All decisions / Decision ID	CREATE_DECISION_INSTANCE, READ_DECISION_DEFINITION, READ_DECISION_INSTANCE, DELETE_DECISION_INSTANCE
Decision Requirements Definition	*, order_decision	All DRDs / DRD ID	READ
Document	*	All Documents	CREATE, READ, DELETE
Group	*, accounting	All groups / Group ID	CREATE, READ, UPDATE, DELETE
Mapping Rule	*, my_mapping	All mappings / Mapping ID	CREATE, READ, UPDATE, DELETE
Message	*	All messages	CREATE, READ
Process Definition	*, order_process	All processes / BPMN Process ID	CREATE_PROCESS_INSTANCE, READ_PROCESS_DEFINITION, READ_PROCESS_INSTANCE, READ_USER_TASK, UPDATE_PROCESS_INSTANCE, UPDATE_USER_TASK, MODIFY_PROCESS_INSTANCE, CANCEL_PROCESS_INSTANCE, DELETE_PROCESS_INSTANCE
Resource	*, my_form, order_process	All resources / Form ID / Process ID	CREATE, READ, DELETE_DRD, DELETE_FORM, DELETE_PROCESS, DELETE_RESOURCE
Role	*, myrole	All roles / Role ID	CREATE, READ, UPDATE, DELETE
System	*	All system operations	READ, READ_USAGE_METRIC, UPDATE
Tenant	*, tenantA	All tenants / Tenant ID	CREATE, READ, UPDATE, DELETE
User	*, felix.mueller	All users / Username	CREATE, READ, UPDATE, DELETE

Configuration

SaaS configuration

In Camunda 8 SaaS, authorizations can be enabled or disabled per cluster. This setting can be changed by:

• Organization admins
• Organization owners

Self-Managed configuration

In Self-Managed deployments, you can enable the authorization system using:

application.yaml

camunda.security.authorizations.enabled: true

Environment variables

CAMUNDA_SECURITY_AUTHORIZATIONS_ENABLED=true

Helm values

orchestration.security.authorizations.enabled=true

Security considerations

Certain permissions grant powerful capabilities and should be assigned with caution. It is critical to ensure that only trusted users and clients are granted these permissions to maintain the security and integrity of your system.

CREATE permission for the Resource (deployment)

Granting CREATE permission on the Resource is equivalent to allowing remote code execution. When a user deploys a BPMN model, it can contain executable code in script tasks, service tasks, or listeners that will be run by the process engine.

Only grant this permission to users and clients who are fully trusted to deploy and execute code in your environment.

CREATE/UPDATE permissions for the User

The CREATE and UPDATE permissions for the User resource are highly sensitive. When a user's password is set or changed via Identity, there are no security controls enforced, such as password complexity policies.

This permission should only be assigned to trusted administrators.

System access permissions

Permissions that control system access are particularly security-sensitive. This includes CRUD operations to the following resources:

• System
• User
• Group
• Role
• Mapping rule
• Tenant

These permissions should be strictly limited to trusted system administrators who are responsible for managing user access control.

No validation of owner and resource IDs

When you create an authorization, the Orchestration Cluster does not validate if the owner or the resource exists at that point in time.

• This behavior provides flexibility to create authorizations for entities outside of the system (for example OIDC users) or for entities that will be created in the future (for example creating process definition authorizations before the process is deployed).

• However, you should keep this in mind when setting up new users, groups, roles, and so on, and verify that the ID of the new entity does not accidentally match an existing authorization.

Default roles

Camunda provides predefined roles to simplify access management:

Role ID	Purpose	Typical authorizations
admin	Full control over all Orchestration Cluster resources and components.	All permissions for all resources: READ, CREATE, UPDATE, DELETE, including ACCESS to all web components.
readonly-admin	Audit-focused users who need read-only access across the Orchestration Cluster.	READ for all resources, including READ_PROCESS_DEFINITION, READ_PROCESS_INSTANCE, READ_USER_TASK, etc.
connectors	Technical role for executing connector calls.	READ_PROCESS_DEFINITION on Process Definition (*), UPDATE_PROCESS_INSTANCE on Process Definition (*), CREATE on Message (*), CREATE, READ, and DELETE on Document
rpa	Role for RPA workers.	READ on Resource (*), UPDATE_PROCESS_INSTANCE on Process Definition (*)

Role assignment in SaaS

• admin: Automatically assigned to Organization Owner and Admin
• connectors: Automatically assigned to Connectors Runtime in Cluster deployment
• readonly-admin: Automatically assigned to Camunda Support Agents for support cases

Common use cases

Web component access

Users need specific permissions to access Orchestration Cluster web components:

• UI access: Resource type Component and Resource Key is one of the components Operate, Tasklist, Identity
  • Example: operate for Operate access
  • Example: tasklist for Tasklist access
  • Example: identity for Identity access
  • Example: * for access to all components
• Without these permissions, users cannot log in to the components

Resource access

Within components, users need additional permissions for specific resources, for example:

• Process related: Resource type processDefinition

  • READ_PROCESS_DEFINITION to view process models
  • CREATE_PROCESS_INSTANCE to start new processes
  • UPDATE_PROCESS_INSTANCE to update running instances
  • MODIFY_PROCESS_INSTANCE to modify running instances
  • CANCEL_PROCESS_INSTANCE to cancel running instances
  • DELETE_PROCESS_INSTANCE to delete completed instances

• Decision related: Resource type decisionDefinition

  • READ_DECISION_DEFINITION to view DMN models
  • CREATE_DECISION_INSTANCE to execute decisions

API access

When implementing your own integrations (for example, using a Camunda client), you should consider the following:

• Job workers: Resource type processDefinition
  • UPDATE_PROCESS_INSTANCE to complete jobs for the specific process definitions