IAM — Identity and Access Management
Roles, policies, RBAC vs ABAC, and implementing the principle of least privilege in your applications
Authentication tells you who someone is. Authorization tells you what they can do. But in practice, authorization is far more complex than a simple yes/no check. Can this user read this document? Can they edit it? Can they share it? Can they delete it? Can they change who else can delete it?
IAM — Identity and Access Management — is the discipline of answering these questions systematically. It's the difference between scattering if (user.role === 'admin') checks throughout your codebase and having a coherent authorization system that scales with your application.
Every application starts simple: admins can do everything, regular users can do most things. Then reality hits. You need viewer roles, editor roles, organization-level permissions, resource-level permissions, and suddenl
This lesson is part of the Guild Member curriculum. Plans start at $29/mo.