Onboarding to preset roles

This topic explains how to start using preset roles, describes what each preset role can do, and explains how to enable and assign them. Preset roles let you onboard new members without building custom roles from scratch. Each one groups a set of permissions that a common persona needs, which keeps permissions consistent across your projects and your account. Preset roles use role attributes, which are parameters for the role’s scope. When you assign a preset role, you supply the projects or views it applies to. Members with appropriate permissions can also add permissions to a preset role to meet specific organizational requirements. To learn more, read Using role scope. The LaunchDarkly base roles, which are Reader, Writer, Admin, Owner, and No access, still exist. Customers with access to preset roles can continue to use base roles when assigning permissions to any member. To learn more, read Roles.

Prerequisites

To complete the procedures in this guide, you need:

• A LaunchDarkly plan that includes preset roles.
• An Admin or Owner base role to enable preset roles for your account.

Preset role categories

Preset roles come in two categories. Project roles grant access to resources inside a project, such as flags, segments, and environments. Organization roles grant access to resources that sit outside any single project, such as members, teams, and billing. Most members need one role from each category. A member with only an organization role has no access to your flags, and a member with only a project role has no access to your account settings.

Project roles

This table summarizes the preset project roles:

Role	Description
LaunchDarkly Project admin	Can perform every action at and below the project level. This is the only preset project role that can bypass required approvals.
LaunchDarkly Maintainer	Can perform all actions on flags, segments, and metrics, and can manage the resources that group flags together, such as environments and views.
LaunchDarkly Project developer	Can perform flag, segment, and AgentControl targeting actions in their assigned projects. Cannot delete environments or manage AI model configs.
LaunchDarkly View developer	Grants the same access as LaunchDarkly Project developer, but restricted to specific views rather than to entire projects.
LaunchDarkly Release manager	Can change flag targeting and manage release pipelines and release policies. Cannot delete flags or bypass required approvals.
LaunchDarkly Contributor	Can make changes to existing flags, including release actions. Cannot create, archive, or delete flags.
LaunchDarkly Reviewer	Can create, review, and apply approval requests. Cannot change targeting directly.
LaunchDarkly Viewer	Can read all data in their assigned projects. Cannot change any project resource.

To learn more, read Project roles.

Organization roles

This table summarizes the preset organization roles:

Role	Description
LaunchDarkly Organization admin	Can manage account security and every organization-level resource, such as members, teams, roles, tokens, and integrations. Cannot manage billing.
LaunchDarkly Architect	Can manage the same organization resources as LaunchDarkly Organization admin, except for account security settings and the IP allowlist.
LaunchDarkly Billing admin	Can view and manage billing and payment details, and can change which member has the account Owner role.
LaunchDarkly Member	Can manage their own access tokens and view teams. Has no project access unless also assigned a project role.

None of the preset organization roles grant access to project resources. To learn more, read Organization roles.

Enable preset roles for your account

Before you can use preset roles, a member with an Admin or Owner base role must enable them. To enable preset roles:

1. Log in to LaunchDarkly as a member with an Admin or Owner base role.
2. Click the gear icon in the left sidebar. The settings page appears.
3. Select Roles from the Access section.
4. Find the banner prompting you to add preset roles to your account:

   

5. Click Review.
6. Click < and > in the “Predefined roles” dialog to review the policies for each preset role. These roles all have names that start with “LaunchDarkly.”
7. Click Accept to enable the new roles in your account.

After you add these roles, you can assign them to any member. You can also customize them by adding policy statements to the preset project roles or preset organization roles.

Review preset roles

To review the access a preset role provides:

1. In the left sidebar, click the gear icon. The settings page appears.
2. Select Roles from the Access section.
3. Choose from the list of preset roles.
4. Click the role name to review the access it provides.

Assign preset roles

To assign a role to an existing member:

1. Click the gear icon in the left sidebar. The settings page appears.
2. Click Members. The Members list appears.
3. Find the account member you wish to give a role.
4. Click that account member’s name. The member’s Access tab opens.
5. Click Assign roles. The “Assign roles” dialog appears.
6. Choose a preset role from the menu.
7. (Optional) Enter a value for the role attribute if the role you chose uses one. For example, add a value here if a role scoped by project prompts you for project keys.
8. Click Assign roles. You are returned to the Access tab.

Further reading

To learn more, read the following topics:

• Manage roles
• Manage role assignments