Rolschema

Rolschema is a data model specification used to encode roles, permissions, and related governance information within information systems. It provides a formal schema to describe who can perform what actions, under what conditions, and within what organizational context. A rolschema typically defines core elements such as roles, inheritance, permissions, constraints, and associations to actors or resources. Roles may be organized in a hierarchy, allowing child roles to inherit permissions from parent roles. Permissions describe allowed actions on resources, and constraints may express preconditions, postconditions, or eligibility requirements. Metadata such as version, description, and domain helps manage lifecycle and interoperability.

In practice, a rolschema is commonly serialized in JSON, YAML, or RDF/OWL formats and can be integrated with access control models such as RBAC or ABAC. It serves as a bridge between policy definitions and application code by providing a machine-readable contract for what roles authorize. Systems may validate rolschema definitions against a standard schema and enforce them at runtime via access control checks and workflow routing. It is used in enterprise software, cloud platforms, and governance tools to support role-based administration, auditing, and compliance.

Example: An object with id 'role:manager', name 'Manager', parentRole 'role:employee', permissions ['read_reports','approve_budget'], constraints ['minTenure:6m'], description 'Manager role with budget approval and reporting duties'.