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feat: add AuthZ permissions for course schedule & details#38213

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dwong2708 wants to merge 6 commits intoopenedx:masterfrom
WGU-Open-edX:dwong2708/authz-new-perms-schedule-details
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feat: add AuthZ permissions for course schedule & details#38213
dwong2708 wants to merge 6 commits intoopenedx:masterfrom
WGU-Open-edX:dwong2708/authz-new-perms-schedule-details

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@dwong2708 dwong2708 commented Mar 25, 2026

Description

This PR introduces new AuthZ permission checks for the Schedule & Details section in course settings, implemented behind a feature flag.

The work follows the requirements defined in the ticket, covering both read and update operations for course schedule and details.

Scope of Changes

Permissions introduced:

  • courses.view_schedule_and_details
  • course.edit_schedule
  • course.edit_details
  • course.view_course

Endpoints updated:

GET /api/contentstore/v1/course_settings/{course_id}/
GET /api/contentstore/v1/course_details/{course_id}/
PUT /api/contentstore/v1/course_details/{course_id}/

All permission checks are gated behind the corresponding feature flag.

Implementation Details

  • GET endpoints. Require courses.view_schedule_and_details permission.
  • PUT endpoint
    • Handles updates for both schedule and details in a single request.
    • Introduce payload-level inspection to differentiate between schedule and details updates, and enforce permissions accordingly.
  • Due to the merged data model (schedule + details updated together), enforcing separate permissions (course.edit_schedule vs course.edit_details) at field level would introduce additional complexity and performance overhead.

Testing instructions

Verified that:

  • Authorized users can access the endpoints.
  • Unauthorized users receive a 403 response.
  • Legacy permission fallback works as expected.

Running relevant tests manually:

On a cms container (run with tutor dev exec cms bash), do:

pytest -p no:randomly --ds=cms.envs.test cms/djangoapps/contentstore/rest_api/v1/views/tests/test_course_details.py::CourseDetailsAuthzViewTest

pytest -p no:randomly --ds=cms.envs.test cms/djangoapps/contentstore/rest_api/v1/views/tests/test_settings.py

Deadline

Verawood

Other information

Closes openedx/openedx-authz#195

@openedx-webhooks openedx-webhooks added the open-source-contribution PR author is not from Axim or 2U label Mar 25, 2026
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openedx-webhooks commented Mar 25, 2026

Thanks for the pull request, @dwong2708!

This repository is currently maintained by @openedx/wg-maintenance-openedx-platform.

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@github-project-automation github-project-automation bot moved this to Needs Triage in Contributions Mar 25, 2026
@dwong2708 dwong2708 changed the title Dwong2708/authz new perms schedule details feat: add AuthZ permissions for course schedule & details (behind feature flag) Mar 25, 2026
@dwong2708 dwong2708 changed the title feat: add AuthZ permissions for course schedule & details (behind feature flag) feat: add AuthZ permissions for course schedule & details Mar 25, 2026
@dwong2708 dwong2708 marked this pull request as ready for review March 25, 2026 16:39
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Just some nits and changes needed due to other PRs already merged in master.

Please make sure to rebase from master to make sure nothing breaks.

@mphilbrick211 mphilbrick211 added Make Upgrade In Progress mao-onboarding Reviewing this will help onboard devs from an Axim mission-aligned organization (MAO). and removed Make Upgrade In Progress labels Mar 27, 2026
@mphilbrick211 mphilbrick211 moved this from Needs Triage to In Eng Review in Contributions Mar 27, 2026
@dwong2708 dwong2708 force-pushed the dwong2708/authz-new-perms-schedule-details branch from 93e2c75 to fa7ea64 Compare March 27, 2026 22:25
@dwong2708 dwong2708 requested a review from rodmgwgu March 27, 2026 23:42
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Looking good, thanks!

serializer = CourseDetailsSerializer(updated_data)
return Response(serializer.data)

def _classify_update(self, request: Request, course_key: str) -> tuple[bool, bool]:
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course_key is a CourseKey.

self.assertEqual(response.status_code, status.HTTP_403_FORBIDDEN)

def test_put_authorized_user_can_edit_course_schedule_and_details(self):
"""
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Indetation gets off here and the next method, using 12 spaces rather than 8.


self.assertEqual(response.status_code, status.HTTP_200_OK)

def test_put_unauthorized_user_can_edit_course_schedule_and_details(self):
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Suggested change
def test_put_unauthorized_user_can_edit_course_schedule_and_details(self):
def test_put_unauthorized_user_cannot_edit_course_schedule_and_details(self):


self.assertEqual(response.status_code, status.HTTP_200_OK)

def test_put_unauthorized_user_can_edit_course_schedule(self):
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Suggested change
def test_put_unauthorized_user_can_edit_course_schedule(self):
def test_put_unauthorized_user_cannot_edit_course_schedule(self):

Only COURSE_STAFF and COURSE_ADMIN can edit schedule related fields.
"""
self.add_user_to_role_in_course(
self.authorized_user,
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The method name and docstring say unauthorized user and then we make the authorized_user the one that is unauthorized, which is a bit confusing. This also happens in test_put_unauthorized_user_can_edit_course_schedule_and_details and potentially others.


if not is_schedule_update and not is_details_update:
# No updatable fields provided in the request
raise ValidationError("No updatable fields provided in the request.")
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I think technically if a PUT request comes in with the same data as the current data, the endpoint should return a 200 response with the current object state. So, at least in that case, an error wouldn't be appropriate.

# Any non-schedule field counts as details update
current_value = getattr(course_details, field, None)
if payload_value != current_value:
is_details_update = True
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I was testing this a little and found I got to this line under the if statement with these values:

field: 'certificates_display_behavior'
payload_value: 'CertificatesDisplayBehaviors.END'
current_value: <CertificatesDisplayBehaviors.END: 'end'>

f"Invalid date format for field {field}: {payload_value}"
) from exc

if payload_value and getattr(course_details, field) != payload_value:
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Can payload_value be None?

(is_schedule_update, is_details_update)
"""
payload = request.data
schedule_fields = {"start_date", "end_date", "enrollment_start", "enrollment_end"}
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How about making this into a class attribute and frozenset?

SCHEDULE_FIELDS = frozenset({"start_date", "end_date", "enrollment_start", "enrollment_end"})


# Normalize/validate schedule fields
if field in schedule_fields:
if payload_value is not None and not is_schedule_update:
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Should we just check if it is a schedule update right away and skip if we already know it is?

if is_schedule_update:
    continue

We could also do this in the else clause:

if is_details_update:
    continue

If we do that then raise this up to the top of the for loop:

if is_schedule_update and is_details_update:
    break

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mao-onboarding Reviewing this will help onboard devs from an Axim mission-aligned organization (MAO). open-source-contribution PR author is not from Axim or 2U

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Task - RBAC AuthZ - Implement new permissions for schedule & details

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