/iam-helper-for-privileged-access-management

Mode 3: Approver Workflow (Grants)

Follow these steps when an Approver needs to review, approve, or reject pending grant requests raised by requesters.

(Rule: Select the scope flag matching where the entitlement/grant is located: pass --project=PROJECT_ID, --folder=FOLDER_ID, or --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID).

Table of Contents

• Prerequisites & Permissions
• Step 1: Search Pending Grants
• Step 2: Approve Pending Grant
• Step 3: Deny Pending Grant

Prerequisites & Permissions {#prerequisites}

• Approver Authorization: To become an approver, the user simply must be added to the approvers list in the entitlement's approvalWorkflow configuration. No explicit IAM roles are required.
• Discover Grants to Approve: Approvers can directly search for grants they are authorized to approve across a project, folder, or organization using gcloud pam grants search --caller-relationship=can-approve without needing the roles/privilegedaccessmanager.viewer role or knowing specific entitlement IDs beforehand.

Step 1: Search Pending Grants {#step-1}

Approvers can search directly for pending grants awaiting their decision across a project, folder, or organization:

gcloud pam grants search \
    --caller-relationship=can-approve \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID

(Or pass --folder=FOLDER_ID, --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID matching the target resource hierarchy).

You can also list all grants for a specific entitlement if the entitlement ID is already known:

gcloud pam grants list \
    --entitlement=ENTITLEMENT_ID \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID

(Note: Read-only search/list operations run autonomously without user prompt).

Step 2: Approve Pending Grant {#step-2}

When the user asks to approve a pending PAM grant:

1. Verify grant existence and state using gcloud pam grants describe or search.
2. Prompt the user to provide a justification string for the approval.
3. Prompt the user for explicit approval under Plan-Validate-Execute rules: "You are about to approve PAM Grant GRANT_ID under entitlement ENTITLEMENT_ID with reason: 'USER_PROVIDED_REASON'. Do you approve? (Yes/No)"
4. Execute approval:

gcloud pam grants approve GRANT_ID \
    --entitlement=ENTITLEMENT_ID \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID \
    --reason="USER_PROVIDED_REASON"

Step 3: Deny Pending Grant {#step-3}

When the user asks to deny or reject a pending PAM grant:

1. Verify grant existence and state using gcloud pam grants describe or search.
2. Prompt the user to provide a justification string for the denial.
3. Prompt the user for explicit approval under Plan-Validate-Execute rules: "You are about to deny PAM Grant GRANT_ID under entitlement ENTITLEMENT_ID with reason: 'USER_PROVIDED_REASON'. Do you approve? (Yes/No)"
4. Execute denial:

gcloud pam grants deny GRANT_ID \
    --entitlement=ENTITLEMENT_ID \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID \
    --reason="USER_PROVIDED_REASON"