Using Axiomatics Policy DevOps

Basic workflow

This section outlines a recommended workflow for creating an authorization domain, including ALFA policies, attribute connectors, and associated tests. Attribute connectors retrieve attribute values from Policy Information Points (PIPs): the external sources of attributes, such as databases, directories, and business services. While this is a suggested approach, you can explore and learn ALFA and the Axiomatics Policy DevOps in any order.

The workflow is as follows:

1. Capture requirements

   Before implementing your authorization domain, document your business requirements and authorization use cases. They are the input of the tests in step 3. An AI coding agent can write the tests from your requirements.

2. Create the dictionary

   Define attributes and their metadata to support policy evaluation.

3. Write tests

   Turn each requirement into one or more tests that state the request and the expected decision, before you write the policy. The tests are the executable specification of your requirements: they fail until the policies implement them.

4. Write ALFA policies

   Write ALFA policies and verify that all tests pass.

5. Create the attribute connectors

   Implement attribute connectors that retrieve values from your PIPs.

When the tests pass, build the authorization domain with buildAuthzDomain, try it with a local ADS with runAds, and deliver it to your environments, see Integration and delivery.