# ADR-011: Advanced Authorization and Access Control Strategy

**Date**: 2025-12-12

**Status**: Proposed

## Context

The current authorization model relies on basic role checks (e.g., `isAdmin` middleware). As the application grows to include more user roles (e.g., 'moderator', 'premium_user', 'store_manager') and more granular permissions, this approach will become unmanageable and lead to scattered permission logic throughout the codebase.

## Decision

We will formalize a centralized Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) or Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) system. This will involve defining how permissions are structured, checked, and managed, likely through a dedicated authorization library (e.g., `casl`) or a custom middleware that consumes a clear set of role definitions.

## Consequences

* **Positive**: Ensures authorization logic is consistent, easy to audit, and decoupled from business logic. Improves security by centralizing access control.
* **Negative**: Requires a significant refactoring effort to integrate the new authorization system across all protected routes and features. Introduces a new dependency if an external library is chosen.
