@anarchitects/auth-declarations

Declaration-only security metadata for auth-aware Nest controllers.

Use this package when a feature/controller brick needs to declare security intent without depending on the runtime-heavy @anarchitects/auth-nest package.

Features

Declare route-level security intent without importing runtime guards or modules
@Public() marks a class or route handler as intentionally public
@Policies(...rules) declares coarse CASL-aligned route policies
@AuthorizeResource(...resources) declares resource-aware policies with an idParam
Convenience aliases @RequirePermissions(...) and @RequireResourceAccess(...)
Metadata constants exported for runtime packages that need to read these declarations

Installation

npm install @anarchitects/auth-declarations
# or
yarn add @anarchitects/auth-declarations
# or
pnpm add @anarchitects/auth-declarations

Peer dependency: @nestjs/common ^11.0.0

Usage

import { AuthorizeResource, Policies, Public } from '@anarchitects/auth-declarations';

@Public()
export class HealthController {}

export class PostsController {
  @Policies({ action: 'update', subject: 'Post' })
  @AuthorizeResource({ action: 'update', subject: 'Post', idParam: 'postId' })
  updatePost() {
    return true;
  }
}

@Policies(...) is the primary generic authorization declaration. It is a coarse route pass check and does not prove ownership or other instance-sensitive rules. Concrete resource authorization belongs to the runtime flow once the subject instance is available.

Typical pairing:

import { Module } from '@nestjs/common';
import { AuthModule, provideAuthRuntimeGuards } from '@anarchitects/auth-nest';

@Module({
  imports: [AuthModule.forRoot({})],
  providers: [...provideAuthRuntimeGuards()],
})
export class AppModule {}

Controllers declare intent through @anarchitects/auth-declarations. Host apps activate the runtime once, centrally, through @anarchitects/auth-nest.

Exports

@Public() — marks a class or route handler as intentionally public.
@Policies(...rules) — declares coarse CASL-aligned route policies using the existing { action, subject } route policy shape.
@AuthorizeResource(...resources) — declares resource-aware policies with an idParam; it is metadata-only and does not bind guards.
@RequirePermissions(...permissions) — convenience alias for @Policies(...).
@RequireResourceAccess(...resources) — convenience alias for @AuthorizeResource(...).
AUTH_PUBLIC_METADATA_KEY, POLICIES_KEY, AUTHORIZE_RESOURCE_KEY — metadata key constants for runtime packages.
RoutePolicy, ResourceAuthorizationRoute — re-exported types.

Runtime Boundary

This package does not enforce authentication or authorization. It does not export guards, providers, modules, principal resolution, request-resource extraction, or app-shell activation helpers.

It also does not export @AuthorizedResource(). That helper belongs to the runtime package because it reads the resource that auth-nest attached to the request after authorization.

Runtime enforcement belongs to @anarchitects/auth-nest, which can read this metadata from controllers and apply the appropriate security behavior.

Development notes

nx build auth-declarations - build the package.
nx test auth-declarations - run the Vitest unit tests.

Anarchitecture Bricks Docs