# cerbos/cerbos

Cerbos is the open core, language-agnostic, scalable authorization solution that makes user permissions and authorization simple to implement and manage by writing context-aware access control policies for your application resources.

Repository: https://github.com/cerbos/cerbos
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/cerbos
Homepage: https://cerbos.dev
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: go, golang, security, policy, authorization, access-control, kubernetes
Last push: 2026-08-26T01:11:16+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 94/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 85, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1991, "days_push": 8, "days_rel": 20, "gap_med": 31, "n_releases_24m": 18}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 4555, forks 208 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:53.369722+00:00)

## What it is
Cerbos is an open-core, language-agnostic policy decision point (PDP) that externalizes authorization from application code using context-aware YAML policies for RBAC, ABAC, and ReBAC. Applications call its API to get ALLOW/DENY decisions, with policies stored in Git, disk, object stores, or databases and managed via GitOps or the commercial Cerbos Hub.

## Use cases
- externalize authorization logic from application code into YAML policies
- implement fine-grained RBAC and ABAC permissions for app resources
- control which MCP tools AI agents can access
- enforce user-level permissions in RAG retrieval pipelines
- manage per-tenant custom permission policies in a SaaS
- audit every access decision for SOC 2 or HIPAA compliance
- update permissions without redeploying the application

## When to choose
- you want authorization decisions separated from application code and managed as version-controlled policy files
- you need context-aware, fine-grained access control across many services or languages
- you must secure AI agents, MCP servers, or RAG pipelines with policy-driven guardrails
- you need per-tenant dynamic permissions in a multi-tenant SaaS
- you want a stateless, self-hosted PDP that scales horizontally

## When to avoid
- you only need simple role checks that a few if-statements can handle
- you want authentication or identity provisioning - Cerbos authorizes but does not authenticate
- you require a fully open-source control plane without the commercial Cerbos Hub
- you cannot run an additional network service next to your application

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: stable
- function: authorization, security, api-framework, middleware
- domain: security, backend, apis, large-language-models, developer-tools
- platform: go, self-hosted, cloud, cross-platform, windows
- tags: policy-engine, pdp, access-control, rbac, abac, rebac, yaml-policies, mcp-authorization, rag-authorization, policy-as-code, gitops, audit-logging, multi-tenancy, zero-trust, ai-agents, docker, kubernetes, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- cerbos/cerbos (main) score 94

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:53.369722+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:20:02.676571+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/cerbos/cerbos (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:53.369722+00:00, sha 1737de61f62c)
  - homepage: https://cerbos.dev (fetched 2026-08-29T09:05:42.343449+00:00, sha fed20590fd21)
  - site_page: https://www.cerbos.dev/features-benefits-and-use-cases/agentic-authorization (fetched 2026-08-29T09:05:42.347907+00:00, sha da905e910ba0)
  - site_page: https://www.cerbos.dev/features-benefits-and-use-cases/dynamic-authorization-for-MCP-servers (fetched 2026-08-29T09:05:42.349540+00:00, sha e56e1544a849)
  - site_page: https://www.cerbos.dev/features-benefits-and-use-cases/access-control-for-rag (fetched 2026-08-29T09:05:42.351060+00:00, sha 1ba6470246e2)
  - site_page: https://www.cerbos.dev/features-benefits-and-use-cases/ai-gateway-authorization (fetched 2026-08-29T09:05:42.352688+00:00, sha a31627e711e4)
  - site_page: https://www.cerbos.dev/features-benefits-and-use-cases/application-permissions (fetched 2026-08-29T09:05:42.354309+00:00, sha a1e3247d3166)
  - site_page: https://www.cerbos.dev/features-benefits-and-use-cases/per-tenant-custom-policies (fetched 2026-08-29T09:05:42.356080+00:00, sha d805e34125ff)
  - site_page: https://www.cerbos.dev/features-benefits-and-use-cases/dynamic-policies (fetched 2026-08-29T09:05:42.357762+00:00, sha 6a6e2d10715d)
  - site_page: https://www.cerbos.dev/pricing (fetched 2026-08-29T09:05:42.346177+00:00, sha 41778bdbcfee)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.