Permit Io

Permit.io is a full-stack authorization platform that separates policy definition and enforcement from application code. It supports RBAC, ABAC, and ReBAC (relationship-based) policy models and provides both a cloud-managed policy decision point (PDP) and a local sidecar PDP for low-latency permission checks. For agents that need to enforce access control decisions — checking whether a user can perform an action on a resource — Permit.io's `permit.check()` API abstracts the policy evaluation so agents don't need to embed complex authorization logic.

The API covers resource definitions, role assignments, policy rules, and permission checks. The permission check API is the primary runtime surface: agents call `permit.check(user, action, resource)` and receive a boolean decision. The management API enables agents to programmatically assign roles, create resources, and update policies as part of user provisioning or administrative workflows. The PDP sidecar model keeps authorization checks low-latency by evaluating policies locally.

Reliability is production-grade with the local PDP model providing resilience to cloud connectivity issues. The sidecar PDP continues serving cached policy decisions during brief cloud unavailability, which is critical for authorization infrastructure that must not become a reliability bottleneck for application availability.

Authentication uses API keys for the management API and PDP configuration. The local PDP sidecar receives policy updates from the Permit.io cloud and evaluates checks locally — runtime permission checks don't require cloud roundtrips after the initial sync. Teams should protect the management API key as it controls policy definitions that determine access to all resources.

Documentation is comprehensive and covers the policy model, SDK integration, and PDP deployment clearly. The role and resource management documentation is thorough for teams building agent-driven user provisioning workflows. Teams evaluating Permit.io versus Cerbos or OpenFGA should compare policy model expressiveness for their specific access control requirements.