Warning

This statement is deprecated in favour of DEFINE ACCESS ... TYPE RECORD. Learn more in the DEFINE ACCESS.

DEFINE SCOPE statement

Setting scope access allows SurrealDB to operate as a web database. With scopes you can set authentication and access rules which enable fine-grained access to tables and fields.

Requirements

• You must be authenticated as a root or namespace user before you can use the DEFINE SCOPE statement.
• You must select your namespace and database before you can use the DEFINE SCOPE statement.

Statement syntax

SurrealQL Syntax
DEFINE SCOPE [ OVERWRITE | IF NOT EXISTS ] @name SESSION @duration SIGNUP @expression SIGNIN @expression [ COMMENT @string ]

Example usage

Below shows how you can create a scope using the DEFINE SCOPE statement.

-- Enable scope authentication directly in SurrealDB
DEFINE SCOPE account SESSION 24h
	SIGNUP ( CREATE user SET email = $email, pass = crypto::argon2::generate($pass) )
	SIGNIN ( SELECT * FROM user WHERE email = $email AND crypto::argon2::compare(pass, $pass) )
;

Using IF NOT EXISTS clause

Available since: v1.3.0

The IF NOT EXISTS clause can be used to define a scope only if it does not already exist. If the scope already exists, the DEFINE SCOPE statement will return an error.

-- Create a SCOPE if it does not already exist
DEFINE SCOPE IF NOT EXISTS example;