UserOperation

UserOperation is a general concept used in information systems to describe a discrete action initiated by a user that may change data, resources, or the system state. It is commonly treated as a record of what happened, who initiated it, when, and under what context.

Typical fields include: user_id, operation_type (such as read, write, update, delete, authenticate), target_resource, timestamp, outcome (success or failure), duration, and contextual metadata (ip_address, session_id).

Purposes include auditing, security, access control, and workflow orchestration. Recording UserOperations creates an audit trail for investigations, compliance, and performance monitoring. Designs often support idempotency, rollback or compensating actions, and strict authorization checks.

Lifecycle considerations: verify authorization, execute the operation, log the outcome, and optionally trigger follow-up actions or alerts. Logs should minimize sensitive data exposure and be protected against tampering.

Examples: a user updates a profile field, a user downloads a report, a user deletes a record, or a user authenticates to a service.

Relation to related concepts: UserOperation is related to a user action or command in software design; in event-sourced systems it may be modeled as an event, and in audit systems as an entry in an event or activity log.

See also: audit log, access control, event logging, command pattern, event sourcing.