Roles¶

Roles are named permissions you assign to users and groups to drive authorization decisions in your applications.

What it is¶

Helix IAM supports two kinds of roles:

Realm roles — defined at the realm level and meaningful across the whole realm.
Client roles — defined on a specific OIDC client and scoped to that application.

Roles can be assigned directly to users or to groups. Users gain a role either by direct assignment or by being a member of a group that holds it (see Groups). Effective roles surface in issued tokens according to the client's scopes & claims configuration.

Tip

Use realm roles for broad, cross-application capabilities (e.g. admin, support) and client roles for application-specific permissions (e.g. an app's editor or viewer). Assign roles to groups rather than individuals to keep access manageable.

In the console¶

Realm roles live under Manage → Users & access → Roles; client roles are managed from their owning OIDC client. Each realm is bootstrapped with system admin, user, and auditor roles.

Open Manage → Users & access → Roles, then click Create and name the realm role.
For a client role, open the OIDC client instead and add a role scoped to that application.
Assign a role to a user from the user's Roles tab, or to a group so every member inherits it.
Click a role to review its user and group assignments before you change or remove it.

Warning

Removing a role that applications check for authorization can immediately revoke access for every user and group that held it. Review assignments before deleting a role. System roles cannot be deleted.

Over the API¶

Realm roles live under /admin/realms/{realm}/roles. The examples below assume you have set $HELIX_URL / $REALM and logged in — see Authenticating to the API.

List roles¶

Each realm ships with three system roles (system: true); defaultRole marks the role auto-granted to new users.

curl -s -b cookies.txt "$HELIX_URL/admin/realms/$REALM/roles"

[
  { "realmId": "acme", "roleId": "8d3a79d3-40e4-4497-8543-234685e689a8", "name": "admin",   "system": true,  "defaultRole": false },
  { "realmId": "acme", "roleId": "9ec2e116-e56b-458d-b11d-1efbfd1c492a", "name": "user",    "system": true,  "defaultRole": true  },
  { "realmId": "acme", "roleId": "6c898aa8-98dc-4597-87be-9352dd5f21da", "name": "auditor", "system": true,  "defaultRole": false }
]

Create a realm role¶

# Refresh CSRF after any GET, then POST (see the auth guide for the helper)
curl -s -b cookies.txt -c cookies.txt "$HELIX_URL/admin/realms/$REALM/roles" >/dev/null
CSRF=$(awk '$6=="XSRF-TOKEN"{t=$7} END{print t}' cookies.txt)

curl -s -b cookies.txt \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-XSRF-TOKEN: $CSRF" \
  -d '{"name":"billing-admin","description":"Manage billing"}' \
  "$HELIX_URL/admin/realms/$REALM/roles"

{
  "realmId": "acme",
  "roleId": "14a78f34-...",
  "name": "billing-admin",
  "system": false,
  "defaultRole": false
}

Delete a role¶

Use the returned roleId:

# Delete — returns 204 No Content (system roles cannot be deleted)
curl -s -b cookies.txt -X DELETE -H "X-XSRF-TOKEN: $CSRF" \
  "$HELIX_URL/admin/realms/$REALM/roles/14a78f34-..."

Full endpoint set¶

Method & path (under `/admin/realms/{realm}`)	Purpose
`GET /roles` · `POST /roles`	List / create realm roles
`GET` · `PUT` · `DELETE /roles/{roleId}`	Read / update / delete a realm role
`GET` · `POST /users/{userId}/roles`	User role mappings
`GET` · `POST /groups/{groupId}/roles`	Group role mappings

Client roles are managed under the owning client. See the API reference.