Role-based access control (RBAC)

ClickStack includes role-based access control (RBAC) so you can define custom roles with fine-grained permissions over dashboards, saved searches, sources, alerts, webhooks, and notebooks. Permissions work at two levels: resource-level access (no access, read, or manage per resource type) and optional fine-grained rules that restrict access to individual resources by name, tag, or ID. ClickStack ships with three built-in roles, and you can create custom roles to match your team’s needs.

User access prerequisites

ClickStack authenticates through ClickHouse Cloud. Before you can assign ClickStack roles, each user must:

Be invited to your ClickHouse Cloud organization. An organization admin invites users from the Cloud console. See Manage cloud users for details.
Have SQL Console access on the service. Navigate to your service’s Settings → SQL Console Access and set the appropriate permission level:

Cloud SQL Console access	ClickStack access
SQL Console Admin (Full Access)	Full access to ClickStack. Required for enabling alerts.
SQL Console Read Only (Read Only)	Can view observability data and create dashboards.
No access	Can’t access ClickStack.

Once a user has Cloud access, they appear in the ClickStack Team Settings page where you can assign a ClickStack role.

Built-in roles

ClickStack includes three system roles. You can’t edit or delete these. The Admin role is assigned to the team creator by default.

Permission	Admin	Member	ReadOnly
Read all resources	✓	✓	✓
Manage dashboards	✓	✓
Manage saved searches	✓	✓
Manage sources	✓	✓
Manage alerts	✓	✓
Manage webhooks	✓	✓
Manage notebooks	✓	✓
Update team settings	✓	✓
Create/delete teams	✓
Manage users and invitations	✓

Assigning roles to team members

The Team Settings page lists all team members with their current role. To change a role, click Edit next to the user’s name and select a new role. Each user has exactly one role.

Default new user role

You can set a default role for new users under Security policies. New users who auto-join the team are automatically assigned this role.

Creating a custom role

Navigate to Team Settings

Open Team Settings and scroll to RBAC Roles.

Add a new role

Click + Add Role. Enter a Role Name and optionally add a Description.

Configure permissions and save

Set permissions for the role, then click Create Role.

Custom roles appear alongside system roles in the RBAC Roles section, with Edit and Delete controls.

Role permissions

Resource permissions

Each role grants an access level per resource type. The three levels are:

Access level	What it allows
No Access	The resource type is hidden from the role entirely.
Read	View the resource and its configuration, but not create, edit, or delete it.
Manage	Full control — create, edit, and delete resources of that type.

The resource types you can control are:

Dashboards — saved dashboard layouts and charts.
Saved searches — persisted log/trace/event queries.
Sources — ingestion source configurations.
Alerts — alert rules and their notification settings.
Webhooks — outbound notification destinations (such as Slack, PagerDuty, and generic HTTP endpoints) that alerts deliver to. This doesn’t refer to the ClickStack API.
Notebooks — collaborative investigation notebooks.

Administrative permissions

In addition to resource permissions, each role includes two administrative settings:

Users (No Access · Limited Access) — controls whether the role can view team members and their roles. Only Admins can invite, remove, or update users.
Team (Read · Manage) — controls whether the role can view or modify team-level settings such as security policies and RBAC configuration.

Fine-grained access rules

Dashboards, Saved Searches, Sources, and Notebooks support fine-grained controls that restrict access to individual resources within a category. Use these when you need to limit a role to specific resources rather than granting blanket access to the entire resource type.

Default access vs. fine-grained controls

Each resource type has an Access Control Mode:

Default Access — applies a single access level (No Access, Read, or Manage) to all resources of that type.
Fine-Grained Controls — lets you define access rules that match specific resources by condition. Resources that don’t match any rule default to no access.

To switch modes, click the chevron to expand a resource type in the role editor, then toggle the Access Control Mode.

Default Access vs Fine-Grained Controls modes in the role editor

Configuring access rules

Each access rule consists of a condition and an access level. Conditions match resources by their properties:

Condition tooltip: match resources by Name or Tag (shown by the title) or by ID (found in the URL)

Condition field	Operators	What it matches	Example
Name	`is`, `contains`	The display name of the resource — for example, the dashboard title.	Name contains `production` — matches any dashboard with “production” in its title.
Tag	`is`, `contains`	Tags assigned to the resource via the tag panel in the top-right corner of the resource view. Available for Dashboards, Saved Searches, and Notebooks only.	Tag is `critical` — matches resources tagged “critical.”
ID	`is`, `contains`	The resource identifier, found in the URL bar when you open the resource.	ID is `abc123` — matches a single specific resource.

The following screenshot shows both the dashboard ID highlighted in the URL bar and a “TESTING” tag visible in the tag panel (top-right).

Dashboard showing the resource ID in the URL bar and a tag in the top-right corner

You can add multiple rules per resource type. Each rule is checked independently using OR logic — a resource is accessible if it matches any rule. Resources that don’t match any rule aren’t accessible.

Example: To give a role read-only access to testing dashboards, expand Dashboards, switch to Fine-Grained Controls, and add two rules:

Name contains testing with access level Read
Tag is testing with access level Read

A dashboard that matches either rule is accessible.

Two fine-grained access rules joined by OR: Name contains testing with Read access, and Tag is testing with Read access

Security policies

The Security Policies section in Team Settings provides additional controls.

Default New User Role sets the role automatically assigned to new users who join the team.

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