Access policy reference

Reference for Retool access policy rules, statuses, error codes, audit events, and API endpoints.

Reference for the components of an access policy, the errors enforcement produces, and the API and audit surfaces that expose them. For the semantics of enforcement, including how grants combine and why a query returns what it does, refer to Data access enforcement. For an introduction to the model, refer to Access policies.

Policy structure

A policy belongs to an organization and applies to one or more resources.

Field	Description
Name	Display name. Defaults to Untitled policy.
Description	Optional explanation, visible to users with Own access to the resource.
Status	Draft, Active, or Inactive. Refer to Statuses.
Access level	Full access or Granular access.
Assignment	The permission groups the policy applies to, and the groups excluded from it.
Environments	The resource environments the policy covers. At least one is required.
Rules	The table, column, and row grants that make up granular access.

Access levels

Access level	Behavior
Full access	Grants unrestricted access to the resource. Rules are not evaluated.
Granular access	Grants only what the policy's rules allow. Anything not granted is blocked.

Full access is not equivalent to granting read and write access to every table. It bypasses rule evaluation, which means it also bypasses restrictions that apply only to granular grants, including the block on GUI mode queries.

If any policy covering a user grants Full access to a resource, that user reaches all of its data regardless of other policies.

Full access to a resource compared to full access to a table

Two grants use similar wording and behave differently.

Grant	Where you set it	Scope
Unrestricted access to this resource, shown as Full access once set	The policy's access level.	The whole resource, including statements that do not reference a specific table.
Allow read + write access to	A rule on a selected table.	The selected table only.

Selecting every table in a granular rule is not equivalent to Full access. Granular rules are always evaluated against the tables they name, so a statement that references no table is blocked no matter how many tables the rules cover.

Data definition statements

Statements that change database structure, such as CREATE, ALTER, DROP, and RENAME, succeed only under Full access.

Under granular access, they return unsupported_query_construct, because enforcement cannot evaluate these statement types against a policy's rules. The reason identifies the statement type, in the form 'RenameStmt' statements are not supported by data security policy enforcement.

Rules

Each rule targets one table.

Field	Description
Table	The table the rule grants.
Actions	read, write, or both.
Columns	The columns granted. Refer to Column grants. A rule listing no columns grants nothing.
Row filters	The filters narrowing which rows the rule grants. Each filter is one condition: a column, an operator, and a value. No filter grants every row.

Actions

Action	Grants
Allow read access to	Reading the granted data.
Allow write access to	Inserting, updating, and deleting the granted data.
Allow read + write access to	Both.

Write grants do not validate the values a user writes. Refer to Row filters do not validate writes.

Column grants

Under Column access, choose the action, then name the columns it applies to. The column field offers two shortcuts above the table's individual columns.

Option	Grants	SELECT *
All present + future columns	Every column on the table, including columns added to it later.	Allowed.
All present columns	Each column the table has now, selected individually. Columns added later are not covered.	Blocked.
A named column	That column only.	Blocked.

Columns allowed indicates how many columns the rule currently grants. A rule that lists no columns grants nothing, so every rule needs at least one column or one of the shortcuts. Refer to Grants and their results for why a wildcard is blocked under a fixed column list.

Row filter operators

A filter value is formatted according to the column's type, as a string, number, or boolean. Columns that are neither numeric nor boolean are compared as strings.

Operator	Matches rows where the column
Equal to	Equals the value.
Not equal to	Does not equal the value.
Less than	Is less than the value.
Greater than	Is greater than the value.
Contains	Contains the value.
RegEx text match	Matches the value as a regular expression.
LIKE	Matches the value as a SQL LIKE pattern.
Is null	Holds no value.
Is not null	Holds any value.

Is null and Is not null compare the column alone and take no value. The rest each take one.

Multiple filters combine with AND, requiring every filter to match, or OR, requiring at least one. The choice applies to every filter in the rule, and filters cannot be nested. A column can appear in more than one filter, which is how a bounded range is expressed. Refer to Filter on a range.

Supported embedded expressions

Row filter values support the following {{ }} embedded expressions.

Embedded expression	Resolves to
{{ current_user.id }}	The user's Retool ID.
{{ current_user.email }}	The user's email address.
{{ current_user.sid }}	The user's session identifier.
{{ current_user.firstName }}	The user's first name.
{{ current_user.lastName }}	The user's last name.
{{ current_user.externalIdentifier }}	The user's external identifier.
{{ current_user.metadata.<attribute> }}	The named user attribute.
{{ environment.variables.<NAME> }}	The named environment variable.
{{ secrets.<name> }}	The named secret.

An embedded expression must resolve to a single value. {{ current_user.groups }} is a list and cannot be used. Values from retoolContext are controlled by whoever runs the query and cannot be used.

If an embedded expression cannot be evaluated for the user running a query, the query is blocked.

Statuses

Status	Meaning
Draft	Edited but not yet saved. Has no effect.
Active	In effect for the assigned groups and environments.
Inactive	Saved, but not in effect.

A policy you are editing keeps its existing status until you save. An Active policy you are part way through editing stays tagged Active, and Retool keeps enforcing the last saved version of it until you save your changes on the Access Enforcement tab.

Deactivating a policy removes the access it granted. Policies persist when data access enforcement is turned off for the resource.

Which groups a policy covers

A policy's assignment has two lists, one that gives groups the policy's grants and one that removes groups from it.

Relation	Effect
Apply to	Members of these groups receive the policy's grants.
Except	Members of these groups are not subject to this policy, even if they also belong to a group in Apply to.

Grants from multiple policies are additive. For any single column, a user reaches a row if any policy granting that column permits it, and a row is returned only if every column the query references permits it.

Where enforcement applies

Surface	Behavior on an enforced resource
Apps, query library, raw SQL	Enforced.
Agents and AI query generation	Enforced as the user who invoked them.
Schema browser	Filtered to granted tables and columns.
GUI mode queries	Blocked for granular grants, allowed under Full access.
Workflow runs with no user to attribute them to, including those triggered by a schedule, a webhook, a query, an email, or another agent	Each query on the resource is blocked.
Workflow runs started manually or from an app	Blocked, unless the organization attributes them to the user who started them.
Public and embedded apps	Blocked, because no signed-in user can be resolved.
Queries with no resolvable user	Blocked.
Catalog and introspection schemas	Always blocked, not configurable.
Queries Retool cannot parse	Blocked.
Data definition statements	Blocked under granular access, allowed under Full access.

Error codes

Blocked queries return HTTP 403 with a structured payload identifying access policies as the source. Queries Retool cannot parse at all return HTTP 400.

Reason code	Meaning
insufficient_data_access_grants	No policy grants the requested table, column, or action.
catalog_access	The query references a database catalog or introspection schema.
public_app_unsupported	The query originates from a public or embedded app.
gui_mode_unsupported	The query uses GUI mode on a resource with granular grants.
headless_workflow_run	The query comes from a workflow run with no invoking user.
unsupported_query_construct	The query parsed, but uses constructs enforcement cannot evaluate.
policy_evaluation_failed	A filter value could not be resolved, or evaluation failed.

Messages name the table or column involved so a builder can act on them. They never reveal the contents of a row filter.

Audit events

Event	Recorded when
DATA_SECURITY_POLICY_CREATED	A policy is created.
DATA_SECURITY_POLICY_UPDATED	A policy is edited, activated, or deactivated.
DATA_SECURITY_POLICY_DELETED	A policy is deleted.
DATA_SECURITY_POLICY_QUERY_BLOCKED	A query is blocked by a policy.

Query run events additionally record whether a policy narrowed the query or left it unchanged, and which policies applied.

Audit entries record policy identifiers and names. Refer to Audit trail logged events.

API endpoints

Access policies are read-only through the Retool API. Create and modify policies in the UI.

Method	Endpoint	Returns
GET	/data_security_policies	All policies in the organization.
GET	/data_security_policies/{policyId}	A single policy.
GET	/data_security_policies/{policyId}/users	The users a policy applies to.
GET	/resource_configurations/{configurationId}/users	The users affected by policies on a resource configuration.

These endpoints require the Data Security Read scope on the access token. Refer to Configure Retool API authentication.

Related

• Access policies
• Data access enforcement
• Troubleshoot access policies
• Configure access policies
• Restrict rows with filters