RBAC (api/internal/authz) is live on /query and /dashboards, backed by a new enterprise/ module (session issuance, audit logging, RBAC storage, OIDC/SAML protocol wiring) that core never imports -- only calls over HTTP. Found and fixed a real cross-tenant vulnerability in dashboards (no tenant_id filtering at all) while writing the threat model doc. Two things are explicitly NOT done, documented rather than hidden: tenant isolation for log data itself (/query still shares one ClickHouse connection and Tantivy index across every tenant -- RBAC controls who can query, not what a query can see), and human SSO login (protocol wiring exists, no HTTP handler calls it yet). See docs/security/threat-model.md and docs/phase-4-runbook.md. Also adds deploy/ (Go Operator + Helm chart, validated offline only -- no cluster was reachable in this environment).
209 lines
12 KiB
Markdown
209 lines
12 KiB
Markdown
# Project: Sentry — Distributed Log Aggregation & Observability Platform
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## Mission
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Build an open-core, Kubernetes-native centralized logging platform that rivals
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Splunk on features but wins on cost-per-GB, modern language stack, and honest
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multi-tenant RBAC. Full architecture spec is in `/docs/architecture.md` — read
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it before touching any component. Do not deviate from the storage/query split
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described there without flagging it to me first.
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## Non-negotiable constraints
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- Distro-agnostic Linux agent: must run identically on RHEL/Debian/Arch/SUSE
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derivatives via a statically-linked musl binary. No glibc runtime deps.
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- Windows support via native ETW/Event Log API, not a WSL shim.
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- AGPLv3 for core + agents. Enterprise module (SSO/multi-tenancy/compliance)
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lives in a separate `enterprise/` directory under a commercial license stub
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— keep the boundary clean from day one, don't let AGPL code import from it.
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- Schema-on-write with OTel semantic conventions as the default schema, with
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schema-on-read fallback for unstructured text.
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- Every UI action must correspond to a documented REST/gRPC call. No
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UI-only logic. CLI (`sentryctl`) and Terraform provider are first-class,
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not afterthoughts.
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## Tech stack (pinned — do not substitute without discussion)
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| Component | Language/Tool |
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|-------------------|------------------------|
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| Edge agent | Rust, musl target |
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| Transport | Redpanda (Kafka API) |
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| Ingest/parse | Go |
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| Analytical store | ClickHouse |
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| Full-text index | Tantivy (Rust) |
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| Control plane/API | Go, gRPC + REST gateway |
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| Frontend | SvelteKit + TypeScript |
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| Deployment | Kubernetes Operator (Go, kubebuilder), Helm, docker-compose for local/homelab |
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## Repo conventions
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- Monorepo, one top-level dir per component (see structure below).
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- Rust: workspace-based, `cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings` must pass.
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- Go: standard `go vet` + `golangci-lint`, no globals for shared state.
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- Every component ships with: unit tests, a `README.md`, and a Dockerfile
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using distroless or scratch base images where feasible.
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- Conventional commits. Every PR-sized change should be a logically complete,
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independently revertible unit.
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- Prefer boring, well-understood dependencies over novel ones. This is
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infrastructure software; operators need to trust it.
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## What "done" looks like for Phase 0 (MVP)
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**Status: shipped.** A single log line, generated on a Linux host by the
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Rust agent, flows: agent → Redpanda → Go ingest service → ClickHouse, and
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is queryable via a minimal SQL endpoint and visible in a bare-bones
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SvelteKit table view. Verified end-to-end on real hardware, not just in
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CI — see `/docs/phase-0-runbook.md`. No alerting, no multi-tenancy, no
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dashboards — that discipline held for the whole phase.
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## What "done" looks like for Phase 1
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**Status: shipped.** A Windows Event Log entry and a Linux journald entry
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are both queryable via SQL (the ClickHouse path) and via free-text search
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(the Tantivy path), from the same UI, within a few seconds of being
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generated. Verified end-to-end on the live stack, including the same
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`record_id` coming back from both query paths for the same record — see
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`/docs/phase-1-runbook.md`.
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ETW and WEF (Windows Event Forwarding) were *designed* in this phase but
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not required to be running for "done": ETW ships behind a feature flag
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most environments won't enable (it needs elevated privileges), and WEF's
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receiver-side was explicitly deferred rather than built. Only the Event
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Log source needed to actually be running end-to-end, and did. The
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Windows-specific agent code itself (`EvtSubscribe`, ETW, service
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registration) remains unverified on real Windows — no Windows toolchain
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existed anywhere in the environment this was built in; flagged
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prominently in `/agent/README.md` and the runbook.
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## What "done" looks like for Phase 2
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A single query bar in the web UI and a single `sentryctl query` command
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can express filter + free-text + stats in one query (e.g. `service=api |
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where status>=500 | stats count by host | sort -count`, or
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`message:"connection refused" | stats count by host`), execute correctly
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against both ClickHouse and Tantivy in one compiled plan, and return in
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well under a second for a 1M-row fixture dataset (rough benchmark, not a
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formal SLA — see `/docs/phase-2-runbook.md` for the actual measurement).
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Raw ClickHouse SQL remains available as an escape hatch, compiling to the
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same execution plan/IR as the pipe syntax so performance doesn't depend
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on which syntax a query uses.
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Non-goals for this phase (same "resist scope creep" discipline as every
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phase so far): no alerting, no dashboards, no multi-tenancy — this phase
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is the query layer only. The two separate placeholder pages/endpoints
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from Phase 0/1 (`/query` raw-SQL-only, `/search` free-text-only) are
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retired, replaced by one `/query` endpoint and one query page.
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See `/docs/query-language-design.md` for the grammar, IR, and
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ClickHouse/Tantivy routing strategy, and
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`/docs/query-language-reference.md` for the user-facing syntax reference
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once built.
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## What "done" looks like for Phase 3
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**Status: shipped.** A user can build a multi-panel dashboard from saved Phase 2 queries (at
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least a line chart panel and a table panel, working end-to-end against
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live data), save an alert rule that fires a Slack webhook when a
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condition is met (threshold comparison, or "absence" — the query returned
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zero rows in its own time window), and see the delivery attempt logged —
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all from the web UI, without touching the API directly. See
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`/docs/phase-3-dashboard-design.md` and `/docs/phase-3-alerting-design.md`
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for the data models and the alerting evaluator's firing/resolved state
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machine, and `/docs/phase-3-runbook.md` for the live-stack verification,
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including a load test of the alert evaluator against ~500 concurrent
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rules.
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This phase adds PostgreSQL as a new pinned-stack component (see the
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dashboard design doc for why ClickHouse can't do this job — dashboards
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and alert state need real row-level locking and transactional
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read-modify-write, which ClickHouse's MergeTree family doesn't provide),
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scoped strictly to control-plane config: dashboards, panels, notification
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targets, alert rules, alert state, delivery log. Log data itself stays on
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ClickHouse/Tantivy only, unchanged.
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Non-goals for this phase (same discipline as every phase so far):
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- No multi-tenancy enforcement and no `enterprise/` module work — single
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tenant/org assumed. Most new tables (`dashboards`, `alert_rules`,
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`notification_targets`) carry a `tenant_id` column so part of Phase 4's
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retrofit doesn't require a migration + backfill — but `alert_state` and
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`delivery_log` do not (an inconsistency found during Phase 4 planning,
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not caught at the time); Phase 4 adds `tenant_id` to those two and
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backfills via a join through `alert_rules.id`, and — per
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`/docs/phase-4-isolation-design.md` — tenant isolation itself turned
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out to live at the ClickHouse/Tantivy connection layer, not via these
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columns at all, since Phase 2's raw-SQL escape hatch can never be
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covered by a row filter regardless of which tables carry one.
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- No raw-SQL dashboard panels (time-range injection isn't reliable
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against arbitrary SQL) — pipe-syntax queries only.
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- No per-group/multi-row threshold alerting (e.g. "alert separately per
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host") — a threshold rule's query must resolve to a single row.
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- No debounce on the way down — a firing alert resolves on the first
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false evaluation, no symmetric "stay firing for N more minutes" hold.
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- No Kubernetes Operator/Helm deployment work — still docker-compose,
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`/deploy` remains stubbed.
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## What "done" looks like for Phase 4
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**Status: in progress, not shipped.** Through task 8: RBAC enforcement
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(`api/internal/authz`), the `alerting`↔`api` service-identity credential,
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tenant-scoped dashboards, and append-only audit logging are built and
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tested (including live-Postgres verification for audit logging and
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rbacstore). The two items this phase's exit criteria below actually
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hinge on are **not** built: SSO login (OIDC/SAML protocol wiring exists;
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no HTTP login handler calls it) and — the highest-risk one — tenant
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isolation for log data itself (every tenant's `/query` still executes
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against one shared ClickHouse connection and Tantivy index; RBAC
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controls who can query, not what a query can see). Full accounting:
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`/docs/security/threat-model.md`; step-by-step verification procedure
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(not yet run against a live cluster in this environment):
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`/docs/phase-4-runbook.md`. The rest of this section describes the exit
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bar this phase is aiming at, not a completed state.
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Two tenants can be provisioned with SSO (OIDC or SAML), each with their
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own users, roles, dashboards, and alert rules, fully isolated at the
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ClickHouse/Tantivy connection layer — not by a row filter — with
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adversarial integration tests proving no cross-tenant data leakage,
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including via the raw-SQL escape hatch and ClickHouse's own `system.*`
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tables. A tenant admin can see a query audit trail for their tenant,
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backed by append-only storage a compromised application credential
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cannot alter (enforced by database grants, not just convention) and
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periodically anchored outside the database so tampering is detectable
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even against a privileged attacker. See `/docs/phase-4-isolation-design.md`
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for the tenant isolation model and why it lives at the connection layer,
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`/docs/phase-4-rbac-design.md` for the role/permission model, and
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`/docs/security/threat-model.md` for the auth flows and audit-log
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integrity guarantees, written for a prospective enterprise customer's
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security team.
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The tenant-isolation, provisioning, SSO, and RBAC-enforcement mechanisms
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live entirely in `enterprise/` (commercial license), confirmed
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explicitly rather than assumed: AGPL core (`/api`, `/alerting`, `/web`)
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stays genuinely single-tenant, with no multi-tenant mechanism present at
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all — `enterprise/` supplies tenant-scoped implementations of core's
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already-shipped `querylang/executor.SQLRunner`/`SearchClient` interfaces
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rather than core growing tenant awareness. Query-compiler-level "compile
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time" enforcement, as originally proposed, turned out not to be
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achievable in any module once Phase 2's opaque raw-SQL passthrough is
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accounted for — the honest, implemented guarantee is that every code
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path (compiled query or raw SQL) is forced through a tenant-scoped
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database connection/index that the database's own access control
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enforces, not a compiler-injected filter.
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Non-goals for this phase (same discipline as every phase so far):
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- No deny-override permissions — per-resource grants (e.g. a specific
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user getting edit access to one dashboard) are additive only; a full
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allow/deny ACL system is future work.
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- No data retention/deletion policy design for tenant deprovisioning —
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the provisioning state machine includes a `deprovisioning` state, but
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what actually happens to a deprovisioned tenant's data is a separate,
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not-yet-designed compliance question.
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- No general multi-cluster orchestration in `/deploy` — scoped to
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proving the per-tenant ClickHouse/Tantivy isolation model works, not a
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fully general multi-cluster system.
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- No protection against a privileged ClickHouse/Postgres administrator —
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the isolation and audit-log guarantees in this phase are structural
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defenses against application-layer bugs and injection, not against
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someone with database superuser access; that's an operational control,
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out of scope here and named explicitly, not silently assumed away.
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## When in doubt
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Ask before: changing the pinned stack, adding a new external dependency
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that pulls in a large transitive tree, or making an architectural decision
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that isn't already specified in `/docs/architecture.md`.
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