windmill/docs/auth-surface.md

Auth surface: facts that are easy to get wrong

Symbols, not line numbers, are cited: they drift less.

• Credential precedence (windmill-api-auth/src/auth.rs extract_token): Authorization: Bearer → token cookie → ?token= query param. A URL with ?token= is a credential on every route, but an existing cookie silently wins over it.
• AUTH_CACHE caches a token's identity for 120 s. Deleting a token row does not purge it: the DB trigger (migrations/20260316000001_token_hash_pk_swap.up.sql) notifies only for label = 'session' rows, and delete_token never calls invalidate_token_from_cache.
• Sessions are token rows with label='session' plus the HttpOnly token cookie, minted only by create_session_token (windmill-api-users/src/users.rs). GET /api/users/refresh_token mints one for any non-job token but returns plain text, no redirect.
• tokens/impersonate (superadmin) returns a multi-use token and sets no cookie.
• max_token_expiration_days caps POST /users/tokens/create and tokens/impersonate, by shortening the stored expiration (cap_token_expiration), never by refusing: the CLI authorization page, wmill user create-token and the editor's language-server token all pick a lifetime without reading the setting, and CLIs already installed never will. The CLI signs in again on its own when its token expires, which is why the authorization page labels it cli-login:<username>, reserved in is_user_token so its expiry does not email the user. A token owned by a service account is exempt: one in the workspace the token names, or in any workspace for a workspace-less token (for tokens/impersonate, the impersonated account). Any workspace admin can therefore create and impersonate a service account to hold an uncapped token, so the ceiling bounds personal tokens only. Only the stored expiration is capped: the auth lookup never reads the setting, so tokens that exist when it is turned on or lowered keep theirs, including none. Deliberately outside it: server-side mints (create_token_internal callers such as native trigger webhook tokens, which never expire for GitHub and Nextcloud), and tokens with their own fixed lifetime that outlive a short ceiling: sessions (MAX_SESSION_VALIDITY_SECONDS, 3 days, and re-mintable through GET /users/refresh_token) and MCP OAuth access tokens (7 days, with a rotating 30-day refresh token). Any logged-in user can read the setting through GET /settings/global/{key}, which the token form uses to offer only expirations within it. The settings API and config sync reject any value parse_max_token_expiration_days cannot read, since the token routes would read it as no ceiling; parseMaxTokenExpirationDays in the frontend must accept exactly the same values.
• A token's label decides whether its expiry raises alerts. When delete_expired_items removes an expired token row, the monitor emails the owner and raises a critical alert (if enabled); rows registered by register_token_expiry_notification also get an "expiring soon" warning first, except a token whose whole lifetime fits in TOKEN_EXPIRY_WARNING_DAYS (7), which gets no row since the warning would arrive minutes after it was created. Neither happens when is_user_token (windmill-common/src/auth.rs) reserves the label, so a token the system mints for itself, whether from the backend or from the frontend through tokens/create, needs a reserved label. An ephemeral- prefix needs no other change (keep it clear of is_server_minted_label if minted through tokens/create); a new prefix also goes into the SQL and Svelte mirrors that function's doc lists.
• Every superadmin route refuses a job token: require_super_admin (windmill-api-auth/src/lib.rs) errors on authed.job_id.is_some(). A script that needs users/create, tokens/impersonate, set_login_type, … must use a dedicated superadmin user token stored as a secret, never $WM_TOKEN. Token scopes cannot narrow superadmin routes.
• Write access to a folder steers its readers' AI chat. An ai_instruction resource's body is delivered to the global chat of everyone who can read the resource, with no opt-in, whenever the chat touches a path under its folder (copilot/chat/folderInstructions.ts); the chat then acts with that reader's permissions, outside the folder too. ai_skill bodies are likewise in play for every reader until turned off. The resource ACL is the only control, so granting write on a folder grants that influence.
• A remote deploy token is a credential for another instance, held per account and workspace (remote_deploy_token, encrypted under the workspace key, re-keyed by set_encryption_key). Its email references password(email) with ON DELETE/UPDATE CASCADE, so whatever deletes or renames an account takes the token along and a recycled address cannot inherit it; removal from a workspace deletes it explicitly (delete_workspace_user_internal, both leave_workspace). The row records the target it was granted for, and remote_deploy::proxy only sends it to a target still matching the workspace setting, so re-pointing the setting cannot redirect anyone's token to a URL of the admin's choosing. require_own_credentials refuses job, scoped and read-only tokens (on set_target too): the stored token carries none of their restrictions. The proxy turns the local session into a remote bearer credential, so every ambient-cookie vector becomes one on the remote: its URL carries the row's random proxy_key (a link riding the SameSite=Lax cookie cannot know it; a header would do, but the frontend's only per-call hook is the global OpenAPI.HEADERS, whose mere presence switches every download to in-memory blobs). The key is served no-store, withheld from the credentials require_own_credentials refuses, and masked in this instance's own request logs (RedactedUri, used by the request span and the log context); a reverse proxy in front still writes the full path to its access log. connect names the target the token was obtained for and is refused, before the token is sent anywhere, if the workspace now points elsewhere; the token only ever goes to that target. It takes no lock against what clears these rows (a removal from the workspace, a target change, a key rotation): their writers take the account, membership, key and settings rows in every order, so any lock held there could close a deadlock. A row can therefore land after one of them ran, however long its remote call took, and every read (load_connection) voids it instead, by identity rather than by comparing times: the connect records, before its remote call, the target setting's version (remote_deploy_target_changed_at) and the created_at of the owner's membership, and the row counts only while both are still the same (or the owner is a superadmin) and it decrypts. So a target set A → B → A, or a removal and re-add, voids it whatever the clocks say. A superadmin with no membership is bound through the credential making the request instead: the insert requires its token row to still exist, and delete_user, offboarding and SCIM removal delete an account's tokens, so an address deleted that way and re-created during the call does not inherit the connection (a JWT, having no row, cannot connect a workspace its owner is not a member of). leave_instance deletes only the password row, leaving the tokens and the memberships, which is not covered. Neither is a member's connect across an account re-creation: an address is not expected to pass to another person. A disconnect empties and stamps the row (inserting one if needed) rather than deleting it, connected_at is when a connect started, and the connect's upsert leaves a row stamped after that alone, so an older connect cannot undo a disconnect or a newer connect. Connecting by redirect: the remote's /user/remote_deploy_authorize page mints a token bound to the one remote workspace (remote-deploy:<source host>, a label reserved in is_user_token so its expiry emails nobody) only on an explicit Authorize, only for a callback whose path is /remote_deploy/callback, and refuses to render inside a frame; the token travels in the fragment, and the callback checks a single-use state the drawer stored, so no other page can plant a token as the user's. The proxy also refuses a path the URL parser would rewrite, serves every response under CSP: sandbox + nosniff, forwards only the method, query, body, content-type and accept — never this instance's cookie or token — and turns the target's 401 into a 502, because the browser logs the user out of this instance on an unhandled 401.
• login_type (password table) is a free-form VARCHAR(50). Password login and password reset require login_type = 'password'; set_password also accepts pending_oauth and turns the account into a password one in the same statement (an account created ahead of its owner gets its first credential that way, or through the OAuth claim below).
• Login links (login_link table, POST /users/login_links superadmin-only, GET /auth/login_link/{token} unauthenticated): single-use, ≤15 min, a session cookie and a 302 to a same-origin rd. require_login_type on the mint refuses (409) an account whose login_type has moved on — the way a caller re-entering an account it created stops being able to once the owner has a password or a provider.
• Pre-approved trial offer (cloud_trial_offer, cloud-only routes under /users/cloud_trial_offer): written by a superadmin at provisioning, consumed by {consumed: true} or by the portal's refusal; …/go is the one Windmill→portal hop that mints a portal login, over the same CUSTOMER_SERVICE_TOKEN trust the onboarding hook uses (users_ee.rs, the portal's admin token). It never expires on its own.
• OAuth login (oauth2_ee.rs login_externally, decision in existing_login_decision) matches an existing account by lowercased email only. Same provider → login; a pending_oauth account (see PENDING_OAUTH_LOGIN_TYPE) is claimed by the first login whose address the provider itself asserted and did not mark unverified — login_type becomes the client key and the hash is nulled; otherwise require_preexisting_user_for_oauth decides: on, every existing account is loggable-into by any provider; off, "exists but with a different login type". A new account gets login_type = <client key>.
• OAuth email trust: LoginUserInfo.email_verified is read leniently (bool or "true"/"false" strings) and is only consulted for the claim above; only GitHub is filtered to primary && verified; a missing email is fabricated from name as <name>@windmill.dev and reaches login_externally with email_asserted = false.
• GET /api/oauth/login/{client} is an unauthenticated 302 to the provider — a plain link from any page starts SSO.
• CLOUD_HOSTED is presence-tested (windmill-common/src/worker.rs): CLOUD_HOSTED=false still enables cloud mode. Of the routes above only the cloud trial offer and onboarding profile routes are cloud-gated; for the rest, cloud only adds quotas.
• CREATE_WORKSPACE_REQUIRE_SUPERADMIN defaults to true when unset; only the literal "true" enables it when set.