AI Governance Engineer
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Cedar

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An open-source policy language for fine-grained authorization, used as a policy-as-code engine for runtime access decisions; a schema-typed, analysable alternative to OPA/Rego.

Developed in
ch. 06, Policy-as-code and gates
Chapters
ch. 04, The Stack · ch. 05, Patterns · ch. 06, The Role
Contrast with
OPA/Rego
Source
Defined by this Body of Knowledge: the section it is developed in is the source

Where it is used

2 chapters of the Body of Knowledge use the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

Patterns that use this term

One pattern page uses the term.

  • Policy-as-code

    Governance policy expressed in an executable policy language (OPA/Rego, Cedar) that evaluates in CI/CD and at admission; the narrower, pipeline subset of…

  • Implicit deny

    The authorisation rule that a request no policy explicitly permits is refused.

Sources

No external source: the term is coined or used in a specific sense by this Body of Knowledge, and the section linked under "Developed in" is its source.

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Cedar. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/cedar. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026cedar,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Cedar}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/cedar}
}