windmill/docs/operator-builder-rights.md

Operator builder rights

Two workspace settings, operator_settings.builder_flows and operator_settings.builder_apps, that let every operator of that workspace compose flows and full-code apps out of runnables that already exist. Neither lets them author backend code or run arbitrary code on a worker, the boundary the operator role draws. The app right does let them write the app's frontend code, which runs in the viewer's browser and is why that right rests on sandbox isolation.

They are granted independently, because the two are not equally verifiable. A composed flow is checked in full server-side (check_flow_is_composition_only refuses everything carrying code). A full-code app is a browser-built bundle no server-side check can read, and rests instead on forced sandbox isolation plus the viewer consent prompt. An admin may reasonably want the first without the second, so never gate on "either": a gate that does authorizes the kind its workspace never granted, which is the whole point of the split. BuilderKind exists to make each call site say which one it means.

These rights are now the compose level of a role's flows and apps capabilities (docs/workspace-roles.md): builder_flows / builder_apps in the legacy operator settings set the operator role to it. Gate a write with check_operator_can_build, naming the BuilderKind: it refuses none and returns the level held, and the caller MUST run the composition-only checks below at compose and may skip them only at full. OperatorBuilderRights::any() is only for surfaces that are genuinely not per-kind, such as listing drafts.

What the check has to cover

check_flow_is_composition_only (windmill-common/src/flows.rs) walks a FlowValue and refuses anything that carries code. Three of its rules exist because the obvious walk misses them:

• FlowScript and any populated modules_node / default_node. These name code hoisted into a flow_node row. Only the dependency job produces them, so an authored value carrying one names code stored under some other flow. The walk covers modules, so a node reference is a way past it.
• An AI agent step's tools. ToolValue::FlowModule wraps a whole FlowModuleValue, so a tool can be a raw script.
• An AI agent step's agent link. A linked agent resolves its tools from an ai_agent resource at run time, and operators may write resources, so the tool list is outside this check and can be swapped for a raw script after the flow is approved.

It also returns what a value-only walk cannot authorize, for the caller to check against its own permissions:

• the worker tags the steps pin, or a builder routes a job onto a privileged worker group;
• every runnable a step references. script_to_payload resolves a step's path with the root DB handle (db_authed = None) and returns the referenced runnable's on_behalf_of, which worker_flow then applies to the step job. So composing a path is enough to run it, and to run it as whoever it runs as: validate_operator_composed_flow re-checks each path under the caller's RLS. This is the general case; the one below is on top of it, not instead of it.
• the (path, hash) of every version-pinned step. A step carrying a hash is dispatched by that hash alone, with the path beside it never consulted, so a readable path paired with another script's hash still runs that other script.

The value is not the only code a flow carries: the schema's x-windmill-dyn-select-code fills its dynamic dropdowns, run as whoever loads the form, so validate_operator_flow refuses it like a step's code. A builder therefore cannot save a developer's flow that has dropdowns; its editor still previews them through the deployed flow rather than the inline route operators are refused. Which developer flows a builder may edit at all is left to permissions: write access to the flow or its folder.

Call it on every write and every preview: run_preview_flow_job and push_flow_dependencies_job both take a request-supplied flow value, so leaving either out makes it the way to run what the write path refuses. A flow draft goes through validate_operator_flow too: a developer who loads a builder's draft in the editor runs its code as themselves.

The same reasoning applies to a builder-authored app, with one extra step. execute_component resolves the runnable it runs on the root handle, so validate_operator_composed_app checks every referenced path under the caller's RLS and refuses hub ones. For a script it checks the version a run would pick: grants are per version, and a path reused after its versions were archived starts with none while the archived ones keep theirs. But it has to check two surfaces, because they are not the same list: the policy's script/<path> and flow/<path> triggerables, and the by-path entries of the app value's runnables map, which is what the editor resolves a runnable_id against and sends. Read only that map, and refuse an entry whose type, path or runType is not text.

Reading a triggerable key is not a split_once(':'): execute_component looks up format!("{component}:{path}") with an unrestricted component string, so a:b:script/x resolves at run time for component = "a:b". Every colon is a possible split, so the check validates every suffix that parses as a runnable rather than guessing which one a request will use.

What makes those checks bind is that ExecutionMode::Viewer is refused for a builder app. In Viewer mode execute_component falls back to a default triggerable for any script//flow/ path, so the policy stops being the list of what the app may invoke, and the job runs as the viewer: an admin who merely opened the app would run anything in the workspace as themselves. Publisher, Guest and Anonymous have no such fallback; all three run as the publisher. If you ever relax the Viewer refusal, the deploy-time path checks above stop being an authorization boundary.

The two raw-app deploy paths are not equivalent

create_app_raw / update_app_raw are multipart: the browser already built the bundle, and nothing server-side compiles anything. Builders use these.

create_app_raw_source / update_app_raw_source push a bundler CLI over caller-supplied files as a job on a worker, which is arbitrary code execution and is why they already require jobs:run on top of apps:write. They stay closed to operators, builder rights or not. Do not "tidy" the exception away: it costs builders nothing, because the browser and the CLI both bundle locally and deploy through the multipart endpoints.

A builder-authored app is forced to policy.sandbox = true. That is what makes it safe to let an operator publish a bundle nobody reviewed: without it the bundle runs same-origin with each viewer's Windmill session. The same check refuses a rawscript/<sha> key in either triggerables map, since that key is the deployed app's authorization to run caller-supplied raw_code hashing to it. It reads the value as stored, NUL escapes stripped: a stripped NUL can turn a key it ignored into inlineScript.

update_app takes a builder too, but settings only: the deploy panel saves a deployed full-code app's access and frontend scopes through it with no value. It reaches the same check, so a builder can no more switch the sandbox off there than on deploy.

A builder's draft goes through the same check_operator_composed_app as its deploy, with BuilderAppWrite::Draft: an admin may open it in the editor or deploy it as it stands, so any rule added for deploys must hold for drafts too. Where the two differ, write decides: a deploy fills in an omitted sandbox or mode, since it stores the policy it checked, while a draft skips triggerables_v2 and must not name another user's run identity. Every frontend writer of a builder draft must conform the policy first with conformBuilderAppPolicy, since a policy loaded from someone else's app breaks these rules: the raw-app editor component does, which covers both the standalone editor and the AI Sessions one, and so does the AI chat.

The raw-app editor previews an app isolated only when its policy has sandbox, and otherwise runs the bundle same-origin with the session of whoever opens it. A builder's draft is therefore held to the same rule as its deploy: update_draft refuses one whose policy.sandbox is not true, so whatever an admin opens of an operator's, deployed or drafted, previews isolated. Turning the sandbox off in their own editor stays that admin's explicit choice. It also refuses a draft naming a runnable the builder cannot read, or a hub one, like the deploy: the editor preview runs them as whoever opens it, and admits any path for an admin. That covers the policy's legacy triggerables too, rawscript/ keys included: every deploy of a draft carries it through untouched, so an admin deploying the draft would publish it. Its triggerables_v2 is not checked: every deploy of a draft rebuilds it from the runnables, the preview never reads it, and a copy gone stale since the last deploy would otherwise block autosave. Viewer mode is refused in a draft as on deploy: the deploy panel shows it as members-only, so an admin deploying the draft would publish it unawares. The builder's editor switches it to Publisher on load, since that panel offers no way out of it. A draft naming a run identity other than its builder is refused for the same reason: a builder's own deploy resets it, but an admin's one-click draft deploy preserves it without showing it. The builder's editor drops another user's identity on load, which an app that user deployed carries. A builder in wm_deployers is the exception: like any member, their deploy may keep another identity, which was judged acceptable for operators in that group (WIN-2536) and is the same for composed flows.

Reading a triggerable key at every colon copies it once per colon, so the check refuses a key over 512 bytes before splitting: a quadratic walk otherwise lets a sub-megabyte key allocate gigabytes. A 255-character path plus a component name stays well under it.

Billing

An operator of a builder workspace consumes a full author seat. This is the one place that reads "either right", and deliberately so: either one makes an operator an author of deployable artifacts, and there is no half-author, so granting both costs no more than granting one. Do not introduce per-right pricing — it turns one boolean into a capability matrix that billing, the cap check and the displayed count would each have to agree on.

Every count reads the role's author flag from role_seat through AUTHOR_SEAT_SQL; see docs/workspace-roles.md. On cloud, billable_seats applies the same rule; see its doc for the out-of-repo invoice it must match.

A role change runs check_seat_cap_for_role_change inside the transaction that writes it, which prices the change by counting seats twice rather than by counting the role's members: a member who already authors elsewhere must not be charged again. A change that adds no seat never blocks.

Accepted risks

• A builder raw app may declare frontend_sdk_scopes, and mint_raw_app_sdk_token mints as the viewer. A consenting admin therefore hands the bundle a 12h admin-identity token within the curated scope list. The viewer consent prompt is the gate, shown by the editor preview as well as the deployed app, before any token is minted. The lever, if this is ever revisited, is dropping variables:read / resources:read / jobs:run from FRONTEND_SDK_ALLOWED_SCOPES for builder apps.
• The raw-app editor preview runs an app's runnables as whoever has the editor open, where the deployed app runs them as its publisher. An admin opening a builder's app in the editor lets its frontend code run, with the admin's rights, any runnable the builder can read. Running as the draft's author instead would need a preview that ignores unsaved edits to the runnable list.
• A builder may make an app public (ExecutionMode::Anonymous): anyone with the URL runs the runnables its policy names, as the builder. Refusing it is the workspace's call, through the RestrictAnonymousAppDeployment protection rule. A Guest app is the same with a login in front: anyone the instance's identity provider admits, member or not, once guest access is enabled. RestrictGuestAppDeployment refuses it.
• A builder raw app may set allow_user_resources on a runnable's inputs, and the bundle picks the $res: path it sends. build_args resolves that path as the viewer, with no prompt, into a job that runs as the builder. Getting a value out takes a guessable path and a readable script that returns, logs or sends its input. Developers can do the same; the lever is refusing a non-empty allow_user_resources (and s3_inputs[].allow_user_resources) for builders.
• A builder's delete or settings-only update reads the app's kind before the write, not under a lock held through it. An admin converting that app to low-code in between lets the builder's request land on the low-code app; the builder already has write access to its path.
• A builder's draft carries no run identity other than the builder's own, and deploying one that carries none makes the deployer its run identity, as any deploy does. An admin deploying such a draft, from the editor or Compare & Deploy, therefore publishes the builder's code running as that admin; the deploy is the admin's explicit act, as it is for a developer's draft.
• operator_settings is git-synced, so a pull can flip every operator's class in a workspace and the billed seat count with it.
• A builder writes JavaScript expressions: step inputs, branch predicates, stop_after_if and suspend. They run in QuickJS with no filesystem or network access, and forbidding them would leave nothing to compose with.