Model Migrations

You can think of model migrations for OpenFGA in the same way as you think about relational database migrations. You can perform migrations with or without downtime for both, and for some changes, doing them without downtime is harder.

OpenFGA	Relational Databases
Add a type	Add a table
Remove a type	Remove a table
Rename a type	Rename a table
Add a relation	Add a nullable column
Rename a relation	Rename a column
Delete a relation	Delete a column

When thinking about migrations, keep in mind that:

• Models are immutable.
• The tuples that are not valid according to the specified model, are ignored when evaluating queries.

To add a type or relation

1. Add the type or relation to the authorization model, and write the model to the store. This will generate a new model ID.
2. If you have tuples to write for the new types/relations, write them.
3. Update the application code to start using those new types/relations.
4. Configure the application to start using the new model ID.

To delete a type or relation

1. Delete the type or relation to the authorization model, and write the model to the store. This will generate a new model ID.
2. Update the application code to stops using the deleted types/relations.
3. Configure the application to start using the new model ID.
4. Delete the tuples for the deleted type/relations. While not required, doing so can improve performance. Invalid tuples will be ignored during query evaluation, but their presence may slow down the process if they need to be retrieved.

To rename a type or relation

• This document describes an end-to-end example for that use case.