admin-console-architect

name

admin-console-architect

description

Design the internal ops/support/superadmin CONSOLE for a multi-tenant SaaS — the surface operators act THROUGH: cross-tenant read/write with MANDATORY audit on every action, impersonation/support-mode with hard boundaries + consent + audit, least-privilege admin tiers (view-ops / write-ops / superadmin), break-glass elevation (time-boxed, approved, auto-expiring, logged), and the operator control-plane (health, manual failover/retry, data-repair). Produces the console architecture, the admin-tier + impersonation enforcement design, the break-glass workflow, and the audit contract. Use when building an internal admin/support/superadmin tool, adding cross-tenant support access, or designing impersonation/break-glass safely. Do NOT use for the authorization POLICY itself (authorization-matrix-designer — this ENFORCES it), operator TELEMETRY (observability-operator), AI-agent authority (agent-authorization-matrix), or the incident PLAYBOOK (incident-response-runbook).

Admin Console Architect

Purpose

The internal admin console is the most powerful and least-scrutinized surface in a SaaS: it reaches across every tenant, it can impersonate any user, and it is usually built fast, for "just us," with none of the controls the customer-facing app has. That is exactly where the breach and the insider- misuse incident come from. This skill designs that surface deliberately: cross-tenant access where every action is audited, impersonation that is bounded and consented and logged, admin tiers that are least-privilege rather than one god role, break-glass elevation that is time-boxed and approved and self-expiring, and an operator control-plane whose dangerous actions (failover, data-repair) are gated and reversible. The deliverable is the console architecture, the admin-tier and impersonation enforcement design, the break-glass workflow, and the audit contract. This skill designs the console that ENFORCES the authorization policy; it does not author that policy, and it does not grant anyone real production access.

Use When

• Use when: building or overhauling an internal admin / support / superadmin / back-office console for operators, support agents, or engineers.
• Use when: adding cross-tenant support access — support needs to see or fix a customer's data — and it must be safe, scoped, and audited.
• Use when: designing impersonation / "log in as this user" / support-mode, and it needs boundaries, consent posture, and an audit trail.
• Use when: designing admin roles/tiers, break-glass/elevation for rare high-privilege actions, or an operator control-plane (manual failover, retry, data-repair) whose actions are dangerous.
• Do NOT use when: the task is authoring the authorization POLICY itself — the roles × permissions × resources model, the impersonation RULES — that is authorization-matrix-designer; this skill designs the console that ENFORCES that policy at its action surface.
• Do NOT use when: the task is operator TELEMETRY — dashboards, metrics, traces, logs to SEE system state — that is observability-operator; this console is the ACTION surface (telemetry may be embedded, but seeing is not acting).
• Do NOT use when: the authority in question is an AI AGENT's (what an agent may merge/deploy/do) — that is agent-authorization-matrix; this console is for HUMAN operators.
• Do NOT use when: the task is the incident response PLAYBOOK (the steps taken during an incident) — that is incident-response-runbook; the console's tools SERVE that playbook, but the runbook is separate.

Inputs to Inspect

1. Who operates: the operator personas (support agent, ops engineer, billing admin, superadmin) and what each legitimately needs to DO — the basis for least-privilege tiers.
2. The authorization policy (authorization-matrix-designer output): the roles/permissions and especially the impersonation and support-access RULES this console must enforce; if absent, that is a Stop Condition.
3. The current admin surface, if any: whether it is one god role, whether actions are audited, whether impersonation exists and how, and any insider-access or over-broad-admin incident history.
4. The sensitive actions the console can take: cross-tenant reads/writes, impersonation, data export, refunds/credits, account deletion, failover, data-repair — ranked by blast radius and reversibility.
5. The audit substrate (audit-log-architect output): what admin actions must record, and whether admin actions currently write audit records at all.
6. Compliance/contract obligations on operator access to customer data (support-access consent, data-residency, who-may-see-what) that constrain the design.

Workflow

1. Define least-privilege admin tiers. Replace "admin can do everything" with tiers mapped to operator personas: e.g. view-ops (read-only support visibility), write-ops (bounded corrective actions), and superadmin (rare, dangerous, few people). Each tier lists what it can see and do; the highest tier is small and its use is exceptional. Enforce against the authorization policy — the console does not invent permissions, it applies them.
2. Make cross-tenant access audited-by-construction. Every console action that touches a tenant's data — read OR write — emits an audit record (operator identity, tenant, action, target, reason/ticket, timestamp) via audit-log-architect's schema, and the emission is not skippable. An operator reading a customer's data is itself an audited event, not just writes. State how a read cannot happen without its audit record.
3. Design impersonation / support-mode with hard boundaries. The security- critical surface:
   • It is always clearly impersonation, never silent. The session is unmistakably marked as "operator X acting as user Y" everywhere, including in every audit record and downstream action.
   • Bounded: define what impersonation may and may NOT do (e.g. view to reproduce a bug: yes; change the user's password / make a payment / read another tenant: gated or forbidden). Sensitive actions while impersonating are separately gated.
   • Consented where required: per policy/contract, support-access may require the customer's consent or a support ticket; encode that gate.
   • Audited end to end: the impersonation start/stop and every action under it record BOTH the real operator and the impersonated user.
   • Time-boxed: an impersonation session auto-expires; it is not a standing capability.
4. Design break-glass / elevation. For rare high-privilege actions, elevation is: explicitly requested with a reason, approved (a second person for the highest tier, per human-approval-boundary), TIME-BOXED and auto-expiring, and heavily logged with a post-hoc review expectation. Standing superadmin is the anti-pattern; break-glass makes the dangerous power available on demand and accountable, not always-on.
5. Design the operator control-plane. Health/status views (telemetry embedded from observability-operator, but this is the action surface), and the manual operations operators need: retry a stuck job, trigger a failover, run a scoped data-repair. Every dangerous action is: scoped (names its target explicitly, no "apply to all"), previewable (dry-run / shows what it will change), reversible or backed-up-first, and audited. Data-repair that mutates customer data is the highest-risk button — gate it like impersonation.
6. Design tenant-isolation-safe UX. An operator viewing tenant A must not accidentally act on tenant B; the current tenant context is explicit and confirmed on write. Cross-tenant list/search views that rank tenants are themselves sensitive and access-controlled. Operator error is a threat model, not just malice.
7. State the design-not-grant posture. This skill designs the console and its controls; it does not provision real admin accounts, grant production access, or run operator actions — those follow the repo's approval path.
8. Deliver the console architecture, admin-tier + impersonation design, break-glass workflow, and audit contract in the Output Format, with policy, telemetry, agent, and runbook handoffs named.

Output Format

ADMIN CONSOLE DESIGN — <system/domain>
Posture:        DESIGN ONLY — enforces the authz policy; grants no real access;
  runs no operator actions (those follow the approval path).
Operator personas → tiers: <persona — tier (view-ops/write-ops/superadmin) —
  can see / can do; enforced against authorization-matrix-designer's policy>
Cross-tenant audit: <every action (READ and write) emits operator/tenant/action/
  target/reason record via audit-log-architect; emission not skippable>
Impersonation/support-mode: <always-marked; bounded (allowed vs gated/forbidden
  actions); consent/ticket gate; records real operator + impersonated user;
  time-boxed auto-expiry>
Break-glass/elevation: <request + reason → approval (2nd person for top tier,
  human-approval-boundary) → time-boxed auto-expiry → heavy log + post-hoc review>
Operator control-plane: <health (telemetry embedded → observability-operator);
  actions: retry/failover/data-repair — each scoped, previewable/dry-run,
  reversible/backed-up-first, audited; data-repair gated like impersonation>
Tenant-safe UX: <explicit current-tenant context; write confirms tenant;
  cross-tenant ranking views access-controlled>
Boundaries:     authz POLICY → authorization-matrix-designer; TELEMETRY →
  observability-operator; AI-agent authority → agent-authorization-matrix;
  incident PLAYBOOK → incident-response-runbook
Open questions / risks: <each with risk-if-wrong / who answers>

Validation Checklist

• Admin access is tiered and least-privilege, not one god role; the top tier is small and its use is exceptional.
• Every cross-tenant action — READ and write — emits an unskippable audit record (operator, tenant, action, target, reason).
• Impersonation is always clearly marked, bounded, consent/ticket-gated where required, time-boxed, and records both the real operator and the impersonated user.
• Break-glass elevation is requested-with-reason, approved (second person for the top tier), time-boxed/auto-expiring, and logged for post-hoc review — no standing superadmin.
• Dangerous control-plane actions (failover, data-repair) are scoped, previewable/dry-run, reversible or backed-up-first, and audited.
• The UX prevents cross-tenant operator error (explicit tenant context, write confirmation); cross-tenant ranking views are access-controlled.
• The console ENFORCES the authorization policy and does not author it; audit uses audit-log-architect's schema.
• The design-only posture is explicit: no real access granted, no operator action run here.

Gotchas

• The admin console is the softest target with the hardest reach: it crosses every tenant and is built with the least scrutiny. Treat it as the highest- privilege surface in the product, not an internal convenience.
• Silent impersonation is an incident generator and a trust breach: if an operator can act as a user without it being unmistakably marked and audited on both identities, you cannot answer "who actually did this?"
• Reads are not free: an operator browsing a customer's private data unaudited is exactly the insider-access failure regulators and customers care about. Audit reads, not only writes.
• Standing superadmin is a breach waiting for a stolen laptop; break-glass (time-boxed, approved, expiring) gives the same power without the always-on liability.
• A data-repair button with no dry-run and no scope is a production-wide foot-gun; "fix this record" must not be able to become "fix every record."
• Impersonation that can change a password / make a payment / delete an account turns support access into account takeover; gate sensitive actions separately from view-to-reproduce.
• An operator with tenant A open and tenant B in another tab writes to the wrong one; the current tenant context and a write-time confirmation are controls against ordinary error, not just malice.
• Embedding telemetry is fine; letting the console become a shadow observability tool (or the observability tool become an action surface) blurs seeing and acting — keep the action surface auditable.

Stop Conditions

• The authorization policy / impersonation rules the console must enforce do not exist or are ambiguous → obtain them from authorization-matrix-designer before designing enforcement; a console enforcing an undefined policy grants power nobody scoped.
• Asked to grant real admin/superadmin access, provision operator accounts, or RUN an operator action (impersonate, failover, data-repair) against production → STOP: this skill DESIGNS the console and its controls; granting access or running privileged operator actions follows the repo's approval path (human-approval-boundary).
• A requested capability would enable unaudited cross-tenant access or silent impersonation → refuse that shape and require the audited, marked, bounded design instead; the convenience is the vulnerability.
• The design implies AI-agent operators acting through the console → the standing authority of an agent is agent-authorization-matrix's decision, not a human-admin tier; route it there rather than granting an agent a human break-glass path.

Supporting Files

• evals/evals.json — behavior cases: the admin-console design, the break-glass/impersonation edge, the unaudited-cross-tenant / silent- impersonation refusal, and the authorization-policy non-trigger.
• evals/trigger-evals.json — discrimination against authorization-matrix-designer (policy vs the console enforcing it), observability-operator (telemetry vs action surface), agent-authorization-matrix (AI-agent vs human-admin authority), and incident-response-runbook (playbook the console serves).
• No references/ — the tier/impersonation/break-glass/control-plane procedure above is complete; detail lives in the produced artifacts.