Business-as-Code: Managing Your Company's Identity Lifecycle with Code

Managing user identities is one of the most critical—and often, most painful—operational tasks for any growing company. You have on-premise Active Directory, a cloud-based Okta instance for SSO, maybe a legacy LDAP server for an old application, and Google Workspace for collaboration. Each system has its own interface, its own logic, and its own set of scripts.

The result? Your IT and DevOps teams are buried under a mountain of manual tasks. Onboarding a new engineer involves clicking through four different admin panels. Offboarding a departing employee becomes a frantic checklist, hoping no access is left behind. This isn't just inefficient; it's a security risk.

What if you could manage all of it—user provisioning, group memberships, access control, and de-provisioning—the same way you manage your infrastructure? What if you could treat your company's identity lifecycle as code?

This is the promise of Business-as-Code, and it's how we're reimagining directory services.

The Problem: The Inefficiency of Directory Sprawl

In a modern enterprise, identity is fragmented. The "single source of truth" is often a myth. This fragmentation leads to predictable problems:

• Operational Burden: IT teams spend countless hours on repetitive tasks like creating accounts, resetting passwords, and updating group memberships across multiple platforms.
• Inconsistent Permissions: When access control is managed manually across different systems, it's easy for permissions to become inconsistent, granting users access they shouldn't have.
• Security Gaps: Delayed or incomplete de-provisioning is one of the most common security holes. A former employee's active account is a backdoor waiting to be exploited.
• Lack of Auditability: Tracing who has access to what, and who granted it, becomes a digital forensics project instead of a simple query.

Traditional solutions involve brittle, custom-written scripts for each service, which are hard to maintain and require specialized knowledge. There has to be a better way.

A Unified API: Directory Services, Reimagined

The solution is to move from manual clicks and disparate scripts to a centralized, programmatic approach. At directories.do, we believe the future of identity management is a single, universal API that sits on top of all your existing directory services.

Instead of wrestling with the specific protocols of LDAP, the PowerShell cmdlets for Active Directory, or the REST APIs for Okta, you interact with one simple, intuitive API.

Turn complex identity operations into simple, automated workflows. Consider how easy it is to provision a new user across all necessary systems with a single API call:

import { directories } from 'sdk.do';

// Create a new user in your primary directory
const newUser = await directories.users.create({
  firstName: 'Jane',
  lastName: 'Doe',
  email: 'jane.doe@example.com',
  groups: ['engineers', 'product-team'],
  attributes: {
    employeeId: 'E12345',
    costCenter: 'CC-987'
  }
});

console.log(newUser);
// { id: 'usr_abc123...', status: 'provisioned' }

This isn't just about creating a user. It's about codifying a business process. This code can be checked into Git, peer-reviewed, and integrated into your existing CI/CD pipelines or HRIS workflows. You've just turned a manual, error-prone checklist into a reliable, automated, and version-controlled operation.

From Provisioning to the Full Identity Lifecycle

While user onboarding is a common pain point, a true Business-as-Code approach covers every stage of an employee's journey. With a unified identity API, you can automate:

• Provisioning: Automatically create accounts and assign baseline permissions the moment an employee is added to your HR system.
• Access Management: Easily add or remove users from groups to manage Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) as they move between projects or teams.
• Attribute Updates: Keep user profiles synchronized across all services, from phone numbers to employee IDs.
• De-provisioning: Instantly and comprehensively revoke all access across every connected directory the moment an employee departs, completely sealing a critical security gap.
• Access Reviews: Programmatically run audits to ensure user permissions are correct and comply with security policies like SOC 2 or ISO 27001.

Frequently Asked Questions

Adopting an API-driven approach to something as critical as identity management naturally brings up questions about compatibility and security. Here’s how we address them.

What directory services does directories.do support?

Our platform is designed for universal compatibility. It can connect to any standard directory service, including Microsoft Active Directory, Azure AD, LDAP, Okta, Google Workspace, and more, providing a unified API layer on top. You don't need to rip and replace your existing infrastructure.

How does directories.do handle security and credentials?

Security is paramount. directories.do securely stores encrypted credentials and uses them to execute agentic workflows on your behalf. All API traffic is encrypted, and access is controlled via API keys, ensuring your identity infrastructure remains protected.

Can I perform complex operations like managing group-based permissions?

Yes. The directories.do API abstracts away the complexity of underlying services. You can easily add or remove users from groups, manage group memberships, and implement Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) with simple API calls, without needing to be an expert in the underlying service.

Start Managing Identity as Code

Stop drowning in admin panels and fragile scripts. It's time to bring the principles of modern software development—automation, versioning, and reliability—to your company's identity management. By treating your directory services as a programmable layer, you empower your teams to move faster, reduce human error, and dramatically improve your security posture.

Ready to reimagine your directory services? Visit directories.do to learn more and see the power of a unified identity API in action.