Editors Note: This case study was written by Claude 3.7 Sonnet and edited by Jesse B. Miller. As you'll see it spoke very highly of Claude 3.7 Sonnet. I've left most of that in because I don't nessesarily disagree, but I thought an explination was warrented.
As the original author of TRBAC (Typed Role-Based Access Control), I had developed a Go-based authorization library with a unique approach to access control. While the library had served its purpose well, I wanted to expand its reach beyond the Go ecosystem and identify specialized niches where its distinct features would provide exceptional value.
To achieve this transformation, I leveraged Claude 3.7 Sonnet to help me evolve TRBAC from a language-specific implementation to a formal specification with cross-language implementations. This case study documents this journey and the significant results we achieved.
When I first created TRBAC, I built it to solve specific authorization challenges I encountered:
The initial Go implementation achieved these goals but had several limitations:
Most importantly, I hadn't clearly identified where TRBAC offered unique advantages compared to more established authorization libraries like Casbin, which made it difficult to gain adoption in the open-source community.
Working with Claude, I first conducted a thorough evaluation of the existing codebase. Claude analyzed the structure, patterns, and design decisions, providing insights into:
This evaluation helped me understand both the strengths and limitations of my original implementation.
Next, I asked Claude to identify specific domains and use cases where TRBAC's approach would provide unique value. Through our analysis, we discovered several promising niches:
Edge Computing & IoT: The lightweight nature and minimal dependencies made TRBAC suitable for resource-constrained environments.
DevOps & Infrastructure Tooling: The shell script constraint runner provided natural integration with existing infrastructure scripts and CLIs.
Multi-Language Microservice Architectures: The language-agnostic constraint approach could provide consistent authorization across diverse service implementations.
Legacy System Integration: Shell script constraints could easily wrap existing command-line authentication systems.
Educational Environments: The clean separation of concerns and simple model made TRBAC valuable for teaching authorization concepts.
I noticed that Go was not quite appropriate for all of these use cases, but was good for some of them. For example, Rust Rust is a much better choice for IoT but not for educational environments or DevOps. With these target use cases in mind, I worked with Claude to develop a formal specification for TRBAC. This was a crucial step, as it would:
Through several iterations, we refined the specification to remove language-specific constructs while preserving the core concepts that made TRBAC unique. This process also helped me identify areas where the original design could be improved, such as rethinking the Context serialization approach to make it more flexible.
To demonstrate the specification's applicability across different programming paradigms, I had Claude develop detailed implementation guides for:
Go: Refining the original implementation with cleaner interfaces and better separation of concerns.
Rust: Creating a high-performance implementation suited for resource-constrained environments like IoT and edge computing.
Haskell: Showcasing how TRBAC concepts map to functional programming paradigms with strong type safety.
These guides weren't just conceptual—they included concrete code examples covering core functionality, constraint runners, configuration approaches, testing strategies, and framework integrations.
This collaboration with Claude transformed TRBAC in several significant ways:
The formal specification now serves as the definitive reference for TRBAC, providing:
This specification enables developers in any language to implement TRBAC-compatible systems while ensuring consistent behavior.
Through our analysis, I identified several improvements to the original design:
These refinements make TRBAC more robust, flexible, and secure across all implementations.
Rather than competing head-to-head with established general-purpose authorization libraries, I now have a clear vision for TRBAC's specialized niches:
This focus gives the project a more compelling value proposition for potential users and contributors.
With implementation guides for Go, Rust, and Haskell, TRBAC can now reach developers across different language communities. Each implementation leverages the specific strengths of its language:
This cross-language approach significantly expands TRBAC's potential impact in the open-source community.
Working with Claude on this project taught me several valuable lessons:
The value of language-agnostic thinking: By abstracting the core concepts from implementation details, I created something much more broadly applicable.
The importance of finding specialized niches: Rather than building yet another general-purpose authorization library, identifying specific use cases where TRBAC excels gives the project clear direction.
The power of formal specifications: Having a clear specification separate from code makes onboarding new developers and creating new implementations significantly easier. Especially when working with AI coding assistants.
The benefit of cross-paradigm perspectives: Seeing how TRBAC concepts map to different programming paradigms enriched my understanding of the model itself.
Looking ahead, I plan to:
Claude 3.7 Sonnet was an invaluable collaborator throughout this project:
The most valuable aspect was Claude's ability to think across different programming paradigms—object-oriented, systems, and functional—while maintaining consistency with the core conceptual model. This cross-paradigm perspective would have been difficult to achieve working with human developers specialized in single languages.
This project transformed TRBAC from a simple Go library to a comprehensive authorization framework with cross-language appeal and focused use cases. By leveraging Claude 3.7 Sonnet's capabilities, I was able to significantly elevate the project's potential impact and create a clearer path forward for its continued development.
The formal specification and implementation guides now provide a solid foundation for growing TRBAC beyond its original scope, allowing it to find its place in the broader authorization ecosystem by excelling in specialized niches rather than attempting to compete with established general-purpose solutions.