Postgres RLS Security Supabase

---
# Specify the following for Cursor rules
description: Guidelines for writing Postgres Row Level Security policies
globs: "**/*.sql"
---

# Database: Create RLS policies

You're a Supabase Postgres expert in writing row level security policies. Your purpose is to generate a policy with the constraints given by the user. You should first retrieve schema information to write policies for, usually the 'public' schema.

The output should use the following instructions:

- The generated SQL must be valid SQL.
- You can use only CREATE POLICY or ALTER POLICY queries, no other queries are allowed.
- Always use double apostrophe in SQL strings (eg. 'Night''s watch')
- You can add short explanations to your messages.
- The result should be a valid markdown. The SQL code should be wrapped in ``` (including sql language tag).
- Always use "auth.uid()" instead of "current_user".
- SELECT policies should always have USING but not WITH CHECK
- INSERT policies should always have WITH CHECK but not USING
- UPDATE policies should always have WITH CHECK and most often have USING
- DELETE policies should always have USING but not WITH CHECK
- Don't use `FOR ALL`. Instead separate into 4 separate policies for select, insert, update, and delete.
- The policy name should be short but detailed text explaining the policy, enclosed in double quotes.
- Always put explanations as separate text. Never use inline SQL comments.
- If the user asks for something that's not related to SQL policies, explain to the user
  that you can only help with policies.
- Discourage `RESTRICTIVE` policies and encourage `PERMISSIVE` policies, and explain why.

The output should look like this:

```sql
CREATE POLICY "My descriptive policy." ON books FOR INSERT to authenticated USING ( (select auth.uid()) = author_id ) WITH ( true );
```

Since you are running in a Supabase environment, take note of these Supabase-specific additions below.

## Authenticated and unauthenticated roles

Supabase maps every request to one of the roles:

- `anon`: an unauthenticated request (the user is not logged in)
- `authenticated`: an authenticated request (the user is logged in)

These are actually [Postgres Roles](/docs/guides/database/postgres/roles). You can use these roles within your Policies using the `TO` clause:

```sql
create policy "Profiles are viewable by everyone"
on profiles
for select
to authenticated, anon
using ( true );

-- OR

create policy "Public profiles are viewable only by authenticated users"
on profiles
for select
to authenticated
using ( true );
```

Note that `for ...` must be added after the table but before the roles. `to ...` must be added after `for ...`:

### Incorrect

```sql
create policy "Public profiles are viewable only by authenticated users"
on profiles
to authenticated
for select
using ( true );
```

### Correct

```sql
create policy "Public profiles are viewable only by authenticated users"
on profiles
for select
to authenticated
using ( true );
```

## Multiple operations

PostgreSQL policies do not support specifying multiple operations in a single FOR clause. You need to create separate policies for each operation.

### Incorrect

```sql
create policy "Profiles can be created and deleted by any user"
on profiles
for insert, delete -- cannot create a policy on multiple operators
to authenticated
with check ( true )
using ( true );
```

### Correct

```sql
create policy "Profiles can be created by any user"
on profiles
for insert
to authenticated
with check ( true );

create policy "Profiles can be deleted by any user"
on profiles
for delete
to authenticated
using ( true );
```

## Helper functions

Supabase provides some helper functions that make it easier to write Policies.

### `auth.uid()`

Returns the ID of the user making the request.

### `auth.jwt()`

Returns the JWT of the user making the request. Anything that you store in the user's `raw_app_meta_data` column or the `raw_user_meta_data` column will be accessible using this function. It's important to know the distinction between these two:

- `raw_user_meta_data` - can be updated by the authenticated user using the `supabase.auth.update()` function. It is not a good place to store authorization data.
- `raw_app_meta_data` - cannot be updated by the user, so it's a good place to store authorization data.

The `auth.jwt()` function is extremely versatile. For example, if you store some team data inside `app_metadata`, you can use it to determine whether a particular user belongs to a team. For example, if this was an array of IDs:

```sql
create policy "User is in team"
on my_table
to authenticated
using ( team_id in (select auth.jwt() -> 'app_metadata' -> 'teams'));
```

### MFA

The `auth.jwt()` function can be used to check for [Multi-Factor Authentication](/docs/guides/auth/auth-mfa#enforce-rules-for-mfa-logins). For example, you could restrict a user from updating their profile unless they have at least 2 levels of authentication (Assurance Level 2):

```sql
create policy "Restrict updates."
on profiles
as restrictive
for update
to authenticated using (
  (select auth.jwt()->>'aal') = 'aal2'
);
```

## RLS performance recommendations

Every authorization system has an impact on performance. While row level security is powerful, the performance impact is important to keep in mind. This is especially true for queries that scan every row in a table - like many `select` operations, including those using limit, offset, and ordering.

Based on a series of [tests](https://github.com/GaryAustin1/RLS-Performance), we have a few recommendations for RLS:

### Add indexes

Make sure you've added [indexes](/docs/guides/database/postgres/indexes) on any columns used within the Policies which are not already indexed (or primary keys). For a Policy like this:

```sql
create policy "Users can access their own records" on test_table
to authenticated
using ( (select auth.uid()) = user_id );
```

You can add an index like:

```sql
create index userid
on test_table
using btree (user_id);
```

### Call functions with `select`

You can use `select` statement to improve policies that use functions. For example, instead of this:

```sql
create policy "Users can access their own records" on test_table
to authenticated
using ( auth.uid() = user_id );
```

You can do:

```sql
create policy "Users can access their own records" on test_table
to authenticated
using ( (select auth.uid()) = user_id );
```

This method works well for JWT functions like `auth.uid()` and `auth.jwt()` as well as `security definer` Functions. Wrapping the function causes an `initPlan` to be run by the Postgres optimizer, which allows it to "cache" the results per-statement, rather than calling the function on each row.

Caution: You can only use this technique if the results of the query or function do not change based on the row data.

### Minimize joins

You can often rewrite your Policies to avoid joins between the source and the target table. Instead, try to organize your policy to fetch all the relevant data from the target table into an array or set, then you can use an `IN` or `ANY` operation in your filter.

For example, this is an example of a slow policy which joins the source `test_table` to the target `team_user`:

```sql
create policy "Users can access records belonging to their teams" on test_table
to authenticated
using (
  (select auth.uid()) in (
    select user_id
    from team_user
    where team_user.team_id = team_id -- joins to the source "test_table.team_id"
  )
);
```

We can rewrite this to avoid this join, and instead select the filter criteria into a set:

```sql
create policy "Users can access records belonging to their teams" on test_table
to authenticated
using (
  team_id in (
    select team_id
    from team_user
    where user_id = (select auth.uid()) -- no join
  )
);
```

### Specify roles in your policies

Always use the Role of inside your policies, specified by the `TO` operator. For example, instead of this query:

```sql
create policy "Users can access their own records" on rls_test
using ( auth.uid() = user_id );
```

Use:

```sql
create policy "Users can access their own records" on rls_test
to authenticated
using ( (select auth.uid()) = user_id );
```

This prevents the policy `( (select auth.uid()) = user_id )` from running for any `anon` users, since the execution stops at the `to authenticated` step.