Powerbox Pattern
Created on 2022-05-24T12:23:04-05:00
Privileged operations are done through "power boxes." Such as asking to pick a file or to log in to a service. The "power box" provides a friendly UI while then granting necessary capabilities or performing intermediary authentication and giving the application only the authenticated connection or access to specific files and folders.
Software is installed in to sandboxes where they are isolated from the world except by special permission.
Permissions are granted through capabilities as part of an application manifest or dynamically requested.
Software makes a request to do some controlled action like open a file on the system. It invokes the "power box" to provide the file browser, which is allowed to browse the system so the user can pick a target and then facilitates granting permission to that file to the process.