Debugging access

Access-control problems come down to two questions: what can this user see, and why can they see (or not see) this one node. The Access category of the admin console has a page for each, plus the two pages that decide who may call your endpoints and AI tools.

For the model itself, read the access control model first: everything below is a view onto it.

Access Debugger

#/manage/access/access-debug

Pick a user, and the page answers both questions in two tabs.

What can this user see

Every node type the user can reach, and, where field-level access control is configured, which fields of those types. This is the tab for "the new starter says half the workspace is empty": compare what they can reach against what you expected them to.

Why can this user see this node

Paste a node and the page draws the chain that carries the access from the node to the user: the ownership edges, the access groups those lead to, and the user's membership in them.

That chain is the answer to both directions of the question. A node the user should not see has a chain you did not intend; a node they should see and cannot has a chain that stops somewhere, and the page shows where.

Nested access groups are followed to any depth, and every hop is reported, so a user who reaches a node through three or more groups nested inside one another is explained by the chain that actually carries the access rather than reported as having none.

Debug with the user, not as them

The debugger reports what a specific user can reach without you signing in as them or changing anything. Impersonation is not needed, and neither is a temporary group membership that someone then has to remember to remove.

Endpoint Access

#/manage/access/endpoint-access

Every custom endpoint in the workspace, listed by path, with its access mode. Selecting several and configuring them together is the usual way to apply a decision across a set of endpoints rather than one at a time.

This is the page to check after adding endpoints, and the one to check first when reviewing what a workspace exposes: an endpoint's access mode decides who can call it from outside, so it is the line between an internal helper and a public API.

See security best practices for choosing a mode, and tokens for calling a protected endpoint from outside.

AI Tool Access

#/manage/access/ai-tool-access

The same page for AI tools: every tool, its access mode, and bulk configuration across a selection.

Worth reviewing whenever a tool gains the ability to do something new. A tool that reads is a different proposition from one that writes or that calls an external service, and the access mode is where that difference is expressed. The built-in tools carry their own modes; most are admin-only.

Tokens

#/manage/access/tokens

API tokens and access keys, with the scopes each carries. See token scopes for what a scope grants, and calling endpoints externally for using one.

Tokens are the credential most likely to outlive the reason it was issued, so this is a page worth reading periodically rather than only when something breaks.

Audit log

#/manage/access/audit

Configuration changes and security events, exportable as a workbook. Every change applied through Sudo lands here too, attributed to the administrator who approved it, in the same history as a change made by hand.

A workflow for "user X cannot see Y"

Confirm the user and the node

Get the user's account and the node's UID. "Cannot see the sales folder" is usually several nodes, so pick one of them.

Ask the Access Debugger why

Open the "why" tab with that user and that node. It draws the chain, or shows where it stops.

Fix at the level the chain broke

A missing group membership is a Users or Teams change; a missing ownership edge is a connector or schema question; a node in the private group is behaving as configured.

Re-check the same pair

The debugger reads live, so the same query confirms the fix without waiting for a reindex.

If the node is reachable but does not appear in search specifically, the problem is more likely indexing than access: check the File Processing Queue and reindexing.