Understand the group permissions system

Member statuses

Member statuses are the roles that can be assigned to each participant (inbox ID) in a group chat. These are the available member statuses:

• Member
  • Everyone in a group chat is a member. A member can be granted admin or super admin status. If a member's admin or super admin status is removed, they are still a member of the group.
• Admin
• Super admin

Options

Use options to assign a role to a permission. These are the available options:

• All members
• Admin only
  • Includes super admins
• Super admin only

Permissions

Permissions are the actions a group chat participant can be allowed to take. These are the available permissions:

• Grant admin status to a member
• Remove admin status from a member
• Add a member to the group
• Remove a member from the group
• Update group metadata, such as group name, description, and image
• Update group permissions on an item-by-item basis, such as calling updateNamePermission or updateAddMemberPermission. To learn more, see Group.kt in the xmtp-android SDK repo.

The following permissions can be assigned by super admins only. This helps ensure that a “regular” admin cannot remove the super admin or otherwise destroy a group.

• Grant super admin status to a member
• Remove super admin status from a member
• Update group permissions

How the group permissions system works

When a group is created, all groups have the same initial member "roles" set:

• There is one super admin, and it is the group creator
• There are no admins
• Each user added to the group starts out as a member

The super admin has all of the available permissions and can use them to adjust the group's permissions and options.

The app's developer can provide a UI that enables group participants to make further adjustments. For example, they can give the super admin the following permission options for group members when creating the group:

• Add members
• Update group metadata

You can use member statuses, options, and permissions to create a custom policy set. The following table represents the valid policy options for each of the permissions:

If you aren't opinionated and don't set any permissions and options, groups will default to using the delivered All_Members policy set, which applies the following permissions and options:

• Add member - All members
• Remove member - Admin only
• Add admin - Super admin only
• Remove admin - Super admin only
• Update group permissions - Super admin only
• Update group metadata - All members

To learn more about the All_Members and Admin_Only policy sets, see group_permissions.rs in the LibXMTP repo.