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Docker Images" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Download Docker Images</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-3 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/getting-started/running-opal/run-docker-containers"><span title="Run Docker Containers" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Run Docker Containers</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-category theme-doc-sidebar-item-category-level-3 menu__list-item menu__list-item--collapsed"><div class="menu__list-item-collapsible"><a class="categoryLink_SZic menu__link menu__link--sublist menu__link--sublist-caret" role="button" aria-expanded="false" tabindex="0" href="/getting-started/running-opal/run-opal-server/get-server-image"><span title="Run OPAL Server" class="categoryLinkLabel_TBW_">Run OPAL Server</span></a></div></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-category theme-doc-sidebar-item-category-level-3 menu__list-item menu__list-item--collapsed"><div class="menu__list-item-collapsible"><a 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menu__link"><span title="OPAL Basics" class="categoryLinkLabel_TBW_">OPAL Basics</span></a></div><ul class="menu__list"><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/overview/architecture"><span title="Architecture 🏗️" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Architecture 🏗️</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/overview/design"><span title="Design" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Design</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/overview/modules"><span title="Core Modules" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Core Modules</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/overview/scopes"><span title="OPAL Scopes" 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14<span title="Configure External Data Sources" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Configure External Data Sources</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/healthcheck_policy_and_update_callbacks"><span title="Healthcheck Policy" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Healthcheck Policy</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/install_as_python_packages"><span title="Run OPAL as Python Packages" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Run OPAL as Python Packages</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/run_opal_with_kafka"><span title="Run OPAL with Kafka" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Run OPAL with Kafka</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/track_a_git_repo"><span title="Track a Git Repo" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Track a Git Repo</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/track_an_api_bundle_server"><span title="Track an API Bundle Server" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Track an API Bundle Server</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/trigger_data_updates"><span title="Trigger Data Updates" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Trigger Data Updates</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/write_your_own_fetch_provider"><span title="Your own Fetch Provider" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Your own Fetch Provider</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/monitoring_opal"><span title="Monitoring OPAL" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Monitoring OPAL</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/run_opal_with_pulsar"><span title="Run OPAL with Apache Pulsar" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Run OPAL with Apache Pulsar</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/single-topic-multi-tenant"><span title="Single-Topic Multi-Tenant Configuration" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Single-Topic Multi-Tenant Configuration</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/setup_opal_behind_proxy"><span title="Setup OPAL Behind a Proxy" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Setup OPAL Behind a Proxy</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/opal_server_connectivity"><span title="OPAL Server Connectivity Control" class="linkLabel_HNbd">OPAL Server Connectivity Control</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/cedar"><span title="Cedar-Agent and Cedar" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Cedar-Agent and Cedar</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/helm-chart-for-kubernetes"><span title="OPAL Helm Chart for Kubernetes" class="linkLabel_HNbd">OPAL Helm Chart for Kubernetes</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/opa-version-migration"><span title="OPA Version Migration Guide" class="linkLabel_HNbd">OPA Version Migration Guide</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-2 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" tabindex="0" href="/tutorials/use_self_signed_certificates"><span title="Use Self Signed Certificates" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Use Self Signed Certificates</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-1 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" href="/fetch-providers"><span title="Fetch Providers" class="linkLabel_HNbd">Fetch Providers</span></a></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-category theme-doc-sidebar-item-category-level-1 menu__list-item menu__list-item--collapsed"><div class="menu__list-item-collapsible"><a class="categoryLink_SZic menu__link menu__link--sublist menu__link--sublist-caret" role="button" aria-expanded="false" href="/opal-plus/introduction"><span title="💎 OPAL+ (Extended License)" class="categoryLinkLabel_TBW_">💎 OPAL+ (Extended License)</span></a></div></li><li class="theme-doc-sidebar-item-link theme-doc-sidebar-item-link-level-1 menu__list-item"><a class="menu__link" href="/FAQ"><span title="FAQ" class="linkLabel_HNbd">FAQ</span></a></li></ul></nav></div></div></aside><main class="docMainContainer_AGU6"><div class="container padding-top--md padding-bottom--lg"><div class="row"><div class="col docItemCol_Yr4n"><div class="docItemContainer_Drb5"><article><nav class="theme-doc-breadcrumbs breadcrumbsContainer_sPy9" aria-label="Breadcrumbs"><ul class="breadcrumbs"><li class="breadcrumbs__item"><a aria-label="Home page" class="breadcrumbs__link" href="/"><svg viewBox="0 0 24 24" class="breadcrumbHomeIcon_mZnQ"><path d="M10 19v-5h4v5c0 .55.45 1 1 1h3c.55 0 1-.45 1-1v-7h1.7c.46 0 .68-.57.33-.87L12.67 3.6c-.38-.34-.96-.34-1.34 0l-8.36 7.53c-.34.3-.13.87.33.87H5v7c0 .55.45 1 1 1h3c.55 0 1-.45 1-1z" fill="currentColor"></path></svg></a></li><li class="breadcrumbs__item"><span class="breadcrumbs__link">Getting Started</span></li><li class="breadcrumbs__item breadcrumbs__item--active"><span class="breadcrumbs__link">Introduction</span></li></ul></nav><div class="tocCollapsible_Qqfg theme-doc-toc-mobile tocMobile_SUcu"><button type="button" class="clean-btn tocCollapsibleButton_StCq">On this page</button></div><div class="theme-doc-markdown markdown"><header><h1>Introduction to OPAL</h1></header>
15<h2 class="anchor anchorTargetStickyNavbar_e8Nk" id="what-is-opal">
15What is OPAL?<a href="#what-is-opal" class="hash-link" aria-label="Direct link to What is OPAL?" title="Direct link to What is OPAL?" translate="no">​</a></h2>
16<p>Modern applications are complex, distributed, multi-tenant and run at scale - often creating overwhelming authorization challenges.</p>
17<p>OPA (Open Policy Agent) brings the power of decoupled policy to the infrastructure layer (especially K8s), and light applications.</p>
18<p>OPAL supercharges OPA to meet the pace of live applications, where the state relevant to authorization decisions may change with every user click and API call.</p>
19<ul>
20<li class="">
21<p>OPAL builds on top of OPA adding realtime updates (via Websocket Pub/Sub) for both policy and data.</p>
22</li>
23<li class="">
24<p>OPAL embraces decoupling of policy and code, and doubles down on decoupling policy (git driven) and data (distributed data-source fetching engines).</p>
25</li>
26</ul>
27<h3 class="anchor anchorTargetStickyNavbar_e8Nk" id="-why-use-opal"><a name="why-use-opal"></a> Why use OPAL<a href="#-why-use-opal" class="hash-link" aria-label="Direct link to -why-use-opal" title="Direct link to -why-use-opal" translate="no">​</a></h3>
28<ul>
29<li class="">OPAL is the easiest way to keep your solution&#x27;s authorization layer up-to-date in realtime.</li>
30<li class="">OPAL aggregates policy and data from across the field and integrates them seamlessly into the authorization layer.</li>
31<li class="">OPAL is microservices and cloud-native (see <a class="" href="/overview/design">Key concepts and design</a>)</li>
32</ul>
33<h3 class="anchor anchorTargetStickyNavbar_e8Nk" id="why-opa--opal--">Why OPA + OPAL == 💜<a href="#why-opa--opal--" class="hash-link" aria-label="Direct link to Why OPA + OPAL == 💜" title="Direct link to Why OPA + OPAL == 💜" translate="no">​</a></h3>
34<p>OPA (Open Policy Agent) is great! It decouples policy from code in a highly-performant and elegant way. But the challenge of keeping policy agents up-to-date is hard - especially in applications - where each user interaction or API call may affect access-control decisions.
35OPAL runs in the background, supercharging policy-agents, keeping them in sync with events in realtime.</p>
36<h2 class="anchor anchorTargetStickyNavbar_e8Nk" id="aws-cedar--opal--">AWS Cedar + OPAL == 💪<a href="#aws-cedar--opal--" class="hash-link" aria-label="Direct link to AWS Cedar + OPAL == 💪" title="Direct link to AWS Cedar + OPAL == 💪" translate="no">​</a></h2>
37<p>Cedar is a very powerful policy language, which powers AWS&#x27; AVP (Amazon Verified Permissions) - but what if you want to enjoy the power of Cedar on another cloud, locally, or on premise?
38This is where <a href="https://github.com/permitio/cedar-agent" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="">Cedar-Agent</a> and OPAL come in.</p>
39<h3 class="anchor anchorTargetStickyNavbar_e8Nk" id="what-opal-is-not">What OPAL <em>is not</em><a href="#what-opal-is-not" class="hash-link" aria-label="Direct link to what-opal-is-not" title="Direct link to what-opal-is-not" translate="no">​</a></h3>
40<h4 class="anchor anchorTargetStickyNavbar_e8Nk" id="opal-is-not-a-policy-engine">OPAL is not a Policy Engine:<a href="#opal-is-not-a-policy-engine" class="hash-link" aria-label="Direct link to OPAL is not a Policy Engine:" title="Direct link to OPAL is not a Policy Engine:" translate="no">​</a></h4>
41<ul>
42<li class="">OPAL uses policy-engines, but isn&#x27;t one itself -</li>
43<li class="">Check out <a href="https://github.com/permitio/cedar-agent" target="_blank">Cedar-Agent</a>, <a href="https://www.openpolicyagent.org/" target="_blank">Open-Policy-Agent</a>, and <a href="https://www.osohq.com/" target="_blank">OSO</a></li>
44</ul>
45<h4 class="anchor anchorTargetStickyNavbar_e8Nk" id="opal-is-not-a-database-for-permission-data">OPAL is not a database for permission data<a href="#opal-is-not-a-database-for-permission-data" class="hash-link" aria-label="Direct link to OPAL is not a database for permission data" title="Direct link to OPAL is not a database for permission data" translate="no">​</a></h4>
46<ul>
47<li class="">Check out <a href="https://research.google/pubs/pub48190/" target="_blank">Google-Zanzibar</a></li>
48</ul>
49<h4 class="anchor anchorTargetStickyNavbar_e8Nk" id="fullstack-permissions">Fullstack permissions:<a href="#fullstack-permissions" class="hash-l
49ink" aria-label="Direct link to Fullstack permissions:" title="Direct link to Fullstack permissions:" translate="no">​</a></h4>
50<ul>
51<li class="">OPAL + a policy-agent essentially provide microservices for authorization</li>
52<li class="">Developers still need to add control interfaces on top (e.g. user-management, api-key-management, audit, impersonation, invites) both as APIs and UIs</li>
53<li class="">Check out <a href="https://permit.io" target="_blank">Permit.io</a></li>
54</ul></div></article><nav class="docusaurus-mt-lg pagination-nav" aria-label="Docs pages"><a class="pagination-nav__link pagination-nav__link--prev" href="/release-updates"><div class="pagination-nav__sublabel">Previous</div><div class="pagination-nav__label">Release Updates</div></a><a class="pagination-nav__link pagination-nav__link--next" href="/getting-started/tldr"><div class="pagination-nav__sublabel">Next</div><div class="pagination-nav__label">TL;DR</div></a></nav></div></div><div class="col col--3"><div class="tableOfContents_XYr6 thin-scrollbar theme-doc-toc-desktop"><ul class="table-of-contents table-of-contents__left-border"><li><a href="#what-is-opal" class="table-of-contents__link toc-highlight">What is OPAL?</a><ul><li><a href="#-why-use-opal" class="table-of-contents__link toc-highlight"><a></a> Why use OPAL</a></li><li><a href="#why-opa--opal--" class="table-of-contents__link toc-highlight">Why OPA + OPAL == 💜</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="#aws-cedar--opal--" class="table-of-contents__link toc-highlight">AWS Cedar + OPAL == 💪</a><ul><li><a href="#what-opal-is-not" class="table-of-contents__link toc-highlight">What OPAL <em>is not</em></a></li></ul></li></ul></div></div></div></div></main></div></div></div><footer class="theme-layout-footer footer footer--dark"><div class="container container-fluid"><div class="footer__links text--center"><div class="footer__links"><a href="https://permit.io" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="footer__link-item">Visit Permit.io</a></div></div><div class="footer__bottom text--center"><div class="footer__copyright">Copyright © 2026 Permit, Inc.</div></div></div></footer><div id="inkeep-shadowradix-_R_p_" style="display:contents"></div><span></span></div>
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