README

Xillion

Xillion is an Attribute-based Resource Framework.

It allows you to work with Resources and their collection of attributes.

Use-cases:

• Use your entities in XACML, ABAC, OPA and other external policy-based frameworks
• Standardise the way remote objects from different sources are represented for integration purposes

Definitions:

• Resource: representation of 1 real-world entity. Has a unique ID (in the form of a URL) and an array of Attributes
• Attribute: Defines a single attribute. Has a unique ID (in the form of a URL), description, an AttributeType and other metadata
• DataType: Data type supported by an Attribute (i.e. string, int, etc)
• ResourceRepository: Container for a set of Resources that allows you to search, get and set Resource instances in bulk
• ResourceContext: Container for a set of Resources Repositories. The root of the structure.
• Profile: A "Contract" or "Interface", specifying which attributes Resources of this type need to "implement'. A single Resource can implement multiple profiles simultaniously.

Features:

• Specify a Attributes, DataTypes, Profiles and Resources to use in your projects in YAML configuration files
• Predefined instances of xml schema datatypes are provided that are commonly used in XACML environments
• Resource Repositories: currently ArrayRepository, with plans for PDO and Elasticsearch based Repositories.
• Resource Loader
• Resource Resolver that can resolve pre-populated Resources with their attributes and types from objects through various means (currently direct and provider-based)
• Resolve Resources directly from your entities: Quick and simple method if you "own" those entities.
• Resolve Resources through a ResourcesProvider: Useful to extract attributes for entities from external libraries.
• Collect your resources in a single Resource Context for bulk operations
• Validate one Attribute, a Resource or an entire Resource Context

Inspiration

• XACML (+JSON profile)
• LDAP
• FHIR
• Open Policy Agent
• SAML2

Naming conventions:

• All identifiers are prefixed with a FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name). I.e. core.xillion.cloud/display
• The identifier FQDN is owned by the entity that defines the identifier (i.e. do not randomly defined resource or attribute identifiers with domain names that you do not own).
• Attribute identifiers do not specify a scheme (i.e. http://, https://, file:// etc)
• Attribute identifiers do not contain a path prefix (i.e. do not prefix paths with /xillion etc)
• Identifiers are lower-case only, and allow dashes for word-spacing (i.e. /some-example)
• Any level of sub-paths is allowed in identifiers. The recommendation is to keep the levels to a minimum (i.e `x.example.web/a/b/c/d/e/f is allowed but discouraged)
• Profile identifiers are in a sub-path prefixed with /profiles.
• Data-type identifiers are in a sub-path prefixed with /data-types.
• Attribute identifiers do not use a prefix. (i.e. do not use prefix /attributes)
• Resource identifiers do not use a prefix. (i.e. do not use prefix /resources)
• Packages (FQDN) define either a set of attributes and profiles (library) -or- resources (content), not both.

License

MIT. Please refer to the license file for details.

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