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SA
Mixed · Identity & AppSec · reviewed 2026-04

SpiceDB / AuthZed

Google Zanzibar-inspired fine-grained authorization database and commercial cloud platform. Used by OpenAI.

Visit authzed.com
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What it does

A Google Zanzibar-inspired fine-grained authorisation database (SpiceDB, open source, 6.4k+ GitHub stars) with a commercial cloud offering (AuthZed). Provides relationship-based access control (ReBAC) that scales to billions of relationships, with schema versioning and consistency guarantees. OpenAI uses AuthZed for ChatGPT authorization.

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Security relevance

AI applications need authorisation that traditional RBAC cannot provide — per-document access in RAG pipelines, per-tool permissions for agents, and context-dependent access decisions. SpiceDB's relationship-based model maps naturally to these AI-specific authorisation patterns. A centralised permission system eliminates authorization silos across your application ecosystem.

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When to use it

Implement when you need fine-grained authorisation for AI applications, particularly RAG systems with document-level access control or agent systems with tool-level permissions. SpiceDB is self-hosted (Expert Required); AuthZed Cloud is a managed alternative. Schema design and application integration required either way.

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OWASP coverage

Risks addressed — mapped to both OWASP Top 10 standards. 3 in LLM, 2 in Agentic.

Agentic Top 10 · 2026 · 2/10 covered
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The raw record

What Yuntona stores. Single source of truth — fork it on GitHub.

name: SpiceDB / AuthZed
slug: spicedb-authzed
type: Mixed
category: Identity & AppSec
url: https://authzed.com

reviewed:   2026-04
added:      2026-04
updated:    2026-04

risks:
  llm:  [LLM01, LLM07, LLM08]
  asi:  [ASI02, ASI03]

complexity:    Expert Required
pricing:       —
audience:      Builder
lifecycle:     [develop]

tags: [AuthZ, Open Source, Permissions, ReBAC, Zanzibar]