Organizations

Understanding the organization model in Novacore — ownership, roles, membership, and access control.

Organizations are the root ownership entity in Novacore. Everything — sites, devices, gateways, and data — belongs to an organization.

Why Organizations?

The org model enables:

  • Multi-tenancy: Multiple users managing shared energy infrastructure
  • Delegation: Grant different access levels to team members
  • Isolation: Each org's data and devices are separate
  • Billing boundary: Usage and subscriptions are per-org

Roles and Permissions

Each organization member has a role that determines their access level:

RoleDescription
OwnerFull control. The identity that created the org. Can transfer ownership, delete org, manage billing.
AdminFull access to org resources. Can manage members, sites, devices, and gateways.
OperatorCan control devices and view data. Optionally scoped to specific sites.
ViewerRead-only access to telemetry and site data.

Knowledge gap for Johan: What is the full permission matrix for each role? Can operators be scoped to specific sites? What actions does each role enable?

Organization Lifecycle

Creating an Organization

After authenticating, create an org:

POST /organizations
{
  "name": "My Energy Lab"
}

The authenticated identity becomes the owner.

Inviting Members

Add members to your organization with a specific role:

POST /organizations/{org_id}/members
{
  "identity_id": "usr-tobias-xyz",
  "role": "admin"
}

Knowledge gap for Johan: How are members invited? By identity ID, email, or public key? Is there an invitation flow with acceptance, or is it instant?

Managing Gateways

Gateways (Zaps) are claimed into an organization. See Gateway Claiming for the full flow.

Managing Sites and Devices

Sites are created within an org. Devices are provisioned to sites. See:

Ownership Model

ORGANIZATION
├── owner_id → IDENTITY (the creator)
├── MEMBERS
│   ├── identity_id → IDENTITY (role: admin)
│   ├── identity_id → IDENTITY (role: operator)
│   └── identity_id → IDENTITY (role: viewer)
├── SITES
│   ├── DEVICES → DERs
│   └── DEVICES → DERs
└── GATEWAYS (claimed to this org)
  • An identity can belong to multiple organizations
  • A gateway can only be claimed by one organization at a time
  • Devices belong to a site within an org
  • If a gateway is reclaimed by a different org, its devices become orphaned

Related Documentation