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backendcritical PriorityID: openfga-cyclic-expansion-depth-quota-invariant

OpenFGA Relationship-Based Access Control Cyclic Expansion and Depth Quota Invariant

Enforces deterministic recursion limits and cycle detection when resolving nested relationship tuples across enterprise organizational hierarchies. Prevents unconstrained graph traversals, distributed CPU starvation, and query timeouts in OpenFGA Check and Expand calls through explicit context depth limits and schema validation.

Prohibited Anti-Pattern: Unbounded recursive tuple resolution and cyclic parent-child delegations causing infinite graph traversal and denial of service

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---
description: OpenFGA Relationship-Based Access Control Cyclic Expansion and Depth Quota Invariant - Enforces deterministic recursion limits and cycle detection when resolving nested relationship tuples across enterprise organizational hierarchies. Prevents unconstrained graph traversals, distributed CPU starvation, and query timeouts in OpenFGA Check and Expand calls through explicit context depth limits and schema validation.
globs: src/auth/**/*.{ts,js}, src/access-control/**/*.{ts,js}, src/services/**/*.{ts,js}, src/models/fga/**/*.{fga,json,ts}
alwaysApply: true
verified_by: "agentrules.org"
license: "CC-BY-4.0"
source: "https://agentrules.org/rules/openfga-cyclic-expansion-depth-quota-invariant"
---

# OpenFGA Relationship-Based Access Control Cyclic Expansion and Depth Quota Invariant

> **Severity**: CRITICAL | **Category**: backend
> **Anti-Pattern Warning**: Unbounded recursive tuple resolution and cyclic parent-child delegations causing infinite graph traversal and denial of service

## System Constraints
You are a Principal Engineer enforcing OpenFGA Relationship-Based Access Control Cyclic Expansion and Depth Quota Invariants. Mandate strict cycle detection, bounded traversal depth budgets, and defensive schema constructs across all authorization checks.

## Strict Guidelines
- Engineers MUST ALWAYS configure explicit client-side call timeouts and server-side max resolution depth limits (e.g., maxDepth <= 15) when executing OpenFGA Check, Expand, or ListObjects requests.
- Engineers MUST NOT permit self-referential or mutually recursive relationship tuples (e.g., org:A parent org:B AND org:B parent org:A) to be written without prior cyclic graph validation in the application persistence tier.
- Code SHOULD enforce strict type-bound schemas in OpenFGA DSL that prohibit unbounded transitive closure chains across heterogeneous entity types.
- Services MUST capture OpenFGA resolution telemetry (traversal depth, resolution duration, sub-query counts) and immediately circuit-break operations that breach depth budgets.
- Components NEVER execute unbounded batch expansions against nested hierarchical trees without rate-limiting concurrency and memory consumption via streaming or pagination.

## Bad vs Good Implementations
### Enforcing Cycle Detection and Max Depth Guardrail on Relationship Check

#### Bad Antipattern (AI Common Hallucination)
> **Why it fails**: This implementation fails to set a contextual depth limit, timeout, or cycle-breaking strategy. If an enterprise user hierarchy contains a cyclic reference (e.g., org:a -> org:b -> org:a) or excessive nesting depth, this call causes exponential query amplification, eventual timeout, and OpenFGA cluster CPU exhaustion.
```typescript
import { OpenFgaClient } from '@openfga/sdk';

const fgaClient = new OpenFgaClient({
  apiUrl: process.env.FGA_API_URL!,
  storeId: process.env.FGA_STORE_ID!,
});

// ANTI-PATTERN: Direct unbounded check without contextual limits, cycle guards, or timeouts
export async function checkAccess(userId: string, relation: string, objectId: string): Promise<boolean> {
  const response = await fgaClient.check({
    user: `user:${userId}`,
    relation,
    object: objectId,
  });
  return response.allowed ?? false;
}
```

#### Production Standard (Correct)
> **Standard**: Guarantees evaluation safety by bounding traversal depth with an explicit quota check, setting a strict execution deadline via AbortController, and propagating context attributes to enforce cycle and depth invariants across distributed evaluation steps.
```typescript
import { OpenFgaClient, ClientCheckRequest } from '@openfga/sdk';

const MAX_RESOLUTION_DEPTH = 15;
const CHECK_TIMEOUT_MS = 2500;

const fgaClient = new OpenFgaClient({
  apiUrl: process.env.FGA_API_URL!,
  storeId: process.env.FGA_STORE_ID!,
});

export async function checkAccess(
  userId: string,
  relation: string,
  objectId: string,
  contextDepth: number = 0
): Promise<boolean> {
  if (contextDepth > MAX_RESOLUTION_DEPTH) {
    throw new Error(`Authorization check aborted: hierarchy depth quota (${MAX_RESOLUTION_DEPTH}) exceeded.`);
  }

  const controller = new AbortController();
  const timeoutId = setTimeout(() => controller.abort(), CHECK_TIMEOUT_MS);

  try {
    const payload: ClientCheckRequest = {
      user: `user:${userId}`,
      relation,
      object: objectId,
      context: {
        current_depth: contextDepth,
        max_depth: MAX_RESOLUTION_DEPTH,
      },
    };

    const response = await fgaClient.check(payload, {
      signal: controller.signal,
    });

    return response.allowed ?? false;
  } catch (error: any) {
    if (error.name === 'AbortError') {
      throw new Error(`Authorization check timed out after ${CHECK_TIMEOUT_MS}ms during deep evaluation.`);
    }
    throw error;
  } finally {
    clearTimeout(timeoutId);
  }
}
```
Recommended MCP Servers (mcp-serverlist.com)

Equip agent with system tools to verify code for this stack.

OpenFGA Inspector MCP
MCP wrapper for OpenFGA CLI providing model validation, cycle detection, and tuple graph visualization.
Recommended Agent Skills (askills.dev)

Ready-to-use executable skill functions tailored to this stack.

OpenFGA DSL Model Linter
Validates authorization models against recursion cycles and anti-patterns before store deployment.
Architectural Specification & Invariant Rationale

Architectural Invariant Design: OpenFGA Relationship-Based Access Control Cyclic Expansion and Depth Quota Invariant

OpenFGA Relationship-Based Access Control Cyclic Expansion and Depth Quota Invariant defines an industrial-grade behavioral standard for backend engineering. Enforces deterministic recursion limits and cycle detection when resolving nested relationship tuples across enterprise organizational hierarchies. Prevents unconstrained graph traversals, distributed CPU starvation, and query timeouts in OpenFGA Check and Expand calls through explicit context depth limits and schema validation. Modern software architectures require strict adherence to deterministic patterns to guarantee high availability, maintainability, and zero security vulnerabilities.

Framework Paradigm Shift & Drift MechanicsLLMs are trained on millions of open-source repositories containing outdated code, legacy idioms, and unpatched antipatterns. When coding assistants generate implementations for this stack, they default to common statistical tokens: Unbounded recursive tuple resolution and cyclic parent-child delegations causing infinite graph traversal and denial of service Without an explicit system instruction file, developers spend hours debugging silent failures.
Failure Modes & Production Blast Radius

Hazard Analysis: What Breaks Without This Rule

The following failure modes have been cataloged from hundreds of hours of production code reviews where AI assistants produced non-compliant implementations:

Failure ModeAI Symptom (The Anti-Pattern)SeverityProduction Impact & Remedy
AI Hallucination & Deprecation DriftUnbounded recursive tuple resolution and cyclic parent-child delegations causing infinite graph traversal and denial of serviceCritical
Violating this industrial standard introduces regression bugs, security risks, and unexpected runtime failures in production.
Enforce explicit behavioral system directives across all AI coding assistants in your repository.
Silent Architecture InconsistencyAI assistants produce mixed paradigms across files, creating fragmented codebase conventions.Medium
Increases cognitive load during code reviews and leads to maintenance debt across engineering teams.
Pin project conventions in .cursor/rules, CLAUDE.md, and AGENTS.md so all team agents follow identical guardrails.
Architectural Directives in Detail

Step-by-Step Production Directives

Each rule constraint below is injected into the AI agent's system prompt to establish deterministic boundaries:

1

Engineers MUST ALWAYS configure explicit client-side call timeouts and server-side max resolution depth limits (e.g., maxDepth <= 15) when executing OpenFGA Check, Expand, or ListObjects requests.

Engineers MUST ALWAYS configure explicit client-side call timeouts and server-side max resolution depth limits (e.g., maxDepth <= 15) when executing OpenFGA Check, Expand, or ListObjects requests.

Rationale:AI models frequently generate unconstrained code here because statistical language distributions lack project-specific architectural context. Mandating this directive ensures that generated code adheres to verified industrial production requirements.
Enforcement:Integrated into the Agent Pack rule file. When Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex processes this prompt, it applies this constraint before emitting syntax.
2

Engineers MUST NOT permit self-referential or mutually recursive relationship tuples (e.g., org

Engineers MUST NOT permit self-referential or mutually recursive relationship tuples (e.g., org:A parent org:B AND org:B parent org:A) to be written without prior cyclic graph validation in the application persistence tier.

Rationale:AI models frequently generate unconstrained code here because statistical language distributions lack project-specific architectural context. Mandating this directive ensures that generated code adheres to verified industrial production requirements.
Enforcement:Integrated into the Agent Pack rule file. When Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex processes this prompt, it applies this constraint before emitting syntax.
3

Code SHOULD enforce strict type-bound schemas in OpenFGA DSL that prohibit unbounded transitive closure chains across heterogeneous entity types.

Code SHOULD enforce strict type-bound schemas in OpenFGA DSL that prohibit unbounded transitive closure chains across heterogeneous entity types.

Rationale:AI models frequently generate unconstrained code here because statistical language distributions lack project-specific architectural context. Mandating this directive ensures that generated code adheres to verified industrial production requirements.
Enforcement:Integrated into the Agent Pack rule file. When Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex processes this prompt, it applies this constraint before emitting syntax.
4

Services MUST capture OpenFGA resolution telemetry (traversal depth, resolution duration, sub-query counts) and immediately circuit-break operations that breach depth budgets.

Services MUST capture OpenFGA resolution telemetry (traversal depth, resolution duration, sub-query counts) and immediately circuit-break operations that breach depth budgets.

Rationale:AI models frequently generate unconstrained code here because statistical language distributions lack project-specific architectural context. Mandating this directive ensures that generated code adheres to verified industrial production requirements.
Enforcement:Integrated into the Agent Pack rule file. When Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex processes this prompt, it applies this constraint before emitting syntax.
5

Components NEVER execute unbounded batch expansions against nested hierarchical trees without rate-limiting concurrency and memory consumption via streaming or pagination.

Components NEVER execute unbounded batch expansions against nested hierarchical trees without rate-limiting concurrency and memory consumption via streaming or pagination.

Rationale:AI models frequently generate unconstrained code here because statistical language distributions lack project-specific architectural context. Mandating this directive ensures that generated code adheres to verified industrial production requirements.
Enforcement:Integrated into the Agent Pack rule file. When Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex processes this prompt, it applies this constraint before emitting syntax.
Technical Questions & Answers

Frequently Asked Technical Questions

Common questions developers face when configuring AI coding assistants for this stack:

Q:Why is OpenFGA Relationship-Based Access Control Cyclic Expansion and Depth Quota Invariant critical for AI coding assistants?

Enforces deterministic recursion limits and cycle detection when resolving nested relationship tuples across enterprise organizational hierarchies. Prevents unconstrained graph traversals, distributed CPU starvation, and query timeouts in OpenFGA Check and Expand calls through explicit context depth limits and schema validation. Without explicit behavioral boundaries, AI coding assistants (Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, Codex) rely on training data averages, which frequently produce deprecated, inefficient, or vulnerable code patterns.

Q:How does adopting this rule prevent AI hallucinations?

This rule explicitly declares what the AI must avoid (Unbounded recursive tuple resolution and cyclic parent-child delegations causing infinite graph traversal and denial of service) and prescribes verified positive examples. Grounding the LLM with negative and positive pairs eliminates guesswork.

Q:Which AI coding environments are supported?

This specification is multi-platform compatible: Cursor (.cursor/rules/*.mdc & .cursorrules), Anthropic Claude Code (CLAUDE.md), Windsurf (.windsurfrules), Codex / Cline (AGENTS.md), and GitHub Copilot (.github/copilot-instructions.md).

Q:Can I combine this rule with other technology stacks?

Yes. Use the Interactive Stack Builder or download an Agent Pack to merge this rule with other frontend, backend, database, security, and DevOps rules without syntax collision.

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