05. Identity & Security/Federated Personas

SiteUser Federation & Personas

GN-Apex maintains an unbreachable security boundary between your internal workspace operators and public project end-users. A single human identity can hold multiple vertical personas (Student, Donor, Shopper, Volunteer) across different websites without ever gaining access to your internal management dashboard.

IDENTITY ARCHITECTURE
2 Tiers
Dashboard Staff vs. Public Community

A customer buying from your retail store or a parent checking report cards authenticates against an isolated project registry with zero risk to your corporate backend.

Zero-Trust Public Identity

The 2-Tier Identity Separation

Unlike monolithic systems where all users share the same database table and permission checks, GN-Apex enforces structural database-level identity isolation:

ParameterTypeRequirementDescription
OrganizationMember (Dashboard Staff)Internal OperatorOptionalAuthenticated corporate personnel (Founders, Admins, Editors, Billing Managers) who access the management console to deploy edge workers, edit content, and view financial ledgers.
SiteUser (Public Community)Federated End-UserOptionalExternal visitors who register on your public storefronts, student portals, or charity campaign pages. SiteUsers authenticate via scoped tokens and are bound to specific project IDs.

The 4-Pillar Persona Engine

When a public visitor creates an account on a project, their SiteUserrecord automatically expands into a specialized persona based on that project's WorkspaceMode:

EDUCATION / ACADEMIC PERSONA

Student & Parent Nodes

Holds admission numbers, class enrollments, term fee balances, attendance records, exam results, and digital permission slips.

NON-PROFIT / PHILANTHROPY

Donor & Volunteer Nodes

Maintains donation histories, recurring giving subscriptions, annual tax certificates, assigned volunteer tasks, and logged service hours.

E-COMMERCE / RETAIL

Customer & Shopper Nodes

Stores physical delivery addresses, order histories, VAT fiscal receipts, saved payment tokens, and shopping carts.

GENERAL / COMMUNITY

Subscriber & Member Nodes

Powers gated article paywalls, discussion commenting, newsletter preferences, and digital membership tiers.

The Cross-Project Identity Bridge

When a user logs into their personal account on the main GN-Apex platform, the Identity Bridge scans the cluster for any SiteUser records associated with their email address.

Universal Personas View
In Account Settings → Linked Personas, users can view every community they belong to in one unified dashboard:
  • “Student at Kipazi Academy (Adm: ADM-2026-0042)”
  • “Monthly Donor at Tanzania Wildlife Trust ($50/mo)”
  • “VIP Customer at Safari Gear Store (12 Orders)”

Project-Scoped Session Tokens

To maintain strict privacy compliance, public session tokens (nx_session_[projectId]) are cryptographically isolated:

  • Domain Scoping: A session token issued on School A is completely invalid on Store B, even if both projects are owned by the same organization.
  • Single Sign-On (SSO): Projects can optionally enable Cross-Subdomain SSO (e.g., portal.yourbrand.com and store.yourbrand.com) through parent organization configuration.