Neo4j Security Skill

When to Use

• Creating, altering, suspending, or dropping users
• Creating roles, granting/revoking role membership
• Granting/denying/revoking graph, database, or DBMS privileges
• Inspecting current privileges (SHOW PRIVILEGES)
• Implementing property-level access control (read/write per property)
• Setting up ABAC rules against OIDC claims or native user tags
• Referencing LDAP/SSO auth provider configuration

When NOT to Use

• Writing Cypher queries against application data → neo4j-cypher-skill
• Cluster ops, backups, server config → neo4j-cli-tools-skill
• Driver connection setup → neo4j-driver-*-skill

MCP Write Gate — MANDATORY

Before executing ANY of the following, show the planned command and wait for explicit confirmation:

• CREATE USER / ALTER USER / DROP USER
• CREATE ROLE / DROP ROLE
• GRANT / DENY / REVOKE (any privilege)
• CREATE AUTH RULE / DROP AUTH RULE

Never auto-execute privilege changes. Show exact Cypher, annotate impact, get "yes".

Execution Context

All security Cypher runs against the system database:

// Neo4j auto-routes CREATE/ALTER/SHOW USER|ROLE|PRIVILEGE to system
// If using cypher-shell: cypher-shell -d system
// If using driver: use database="system"

1. User Management

Create user

CREATE USER alice SET PASSWORD 'secret' CHANGE NOT REQUIRED;
// CHANGE REQUIRED (default): forces password change on first login
// CHANGE NOT REQUIRED: password valid immediately
// SET STATUS ACTIVE (default) | SUSPENDED

Parameterised password (preferred in scripts)

CREATE USER $username SET PASSWORD $password CHANGE NOT REQUIRED;

Alter user

ALTER USER alice SET PASSWORD $newPw CHANGE NOT REQUIRED;
ALTER USER alice SET STATUS SUSPENDED;          // lock account
ALTER USER alice SET STATUS ACTIVE;             // unlock
ALTER USER alice SET HOME DATABASE mydb;        // default db on connect
ALTER USER alice IF EXISTS SET PASSWORD $pw;    // safe if missing

User tags [2026.06+, Enterprise]

Tags are arbitrary strings on the native user object, readable in ABAC rules via abac.native.user_tags().

CREATE USER jake SET PASSWORD $pw SET TAGS 'finance', 'auditor';
ALTER USER jake REMOVE TAG 'auditor' ADD TAG 'on-call';   // REMOVE before ADD before SET
ALTER USER jake SET TAGS 'finance', 'auditor';            // replaces all existing tags
ALTER USER jake REMOVE ALL TAGS;
ALTER USERS jake, alice ADD TAGS 'pii-access';            // bulk tag edit

SET/ADD/REMOVE TAG[S] requires SET USER METADATA; reading tag values requires SHOW USER METADATA:

GRANT SET USER METADATA ON DBMS TO userAdmin;
GRANT SHOW USER METADATA ON DBMS TO auditor;
GRANT USER METADATA MANAGEMENT ON DBMS TO userManager;   // both of the above

Show users

SHOW USERS YIELD user, roles, passwordChangeRequired, suspended, home
WHERE suspended = false
RETURN user, roles ORDER BY user;

// tags column returns null without SHOW USER METADATA [2026.06+]
SHOW USERS YIELD user, roles, tags;

// runnable CREATE USER commands for the whole DBMS [2026.09]
SHOW USERS AS COMMANDS;
SHOW USERS WITH AUTH AS COMMANDS;   // includes auth provider config + credentials

SHOW USERS WITH AUTH AS COMMANDS exposes credentials. Use only for secured backup/restore handling. Prefer SHOW USERS AS COMMANDS when auth material is not required. Never paste auth-export output into plaintext docs, logs, tickets, or source control.

Drop user

DROP USER alice IF EXISTS;

2. Role Management

Create / drop role

CREATE ROLE analyst;
CREATE ROLE analyst IF NOT EXISTS;
DROP ROLE analyst IF EXISTS;

Assign / remove roles

GRANT ROLE analyst TO alice;
GRANT ROLE analyst, writer TO alice, bob;   // bulk
REVOKE ROLE analyst FROM alice;

Inspect roles

SHOW ROLES YIELD role, member ORDER BY role;
SHOW ROLE analyst PRIVILEGES AS COMMANDS;   // returns runnable GRANT commands
SHOW POPULATED ROLES YIELD role;            // only roles with members

// runnable CREATE ROLE commands for the whole DBMS [2026.09]
SHOW ROLES AS COMMANDS;
SHOW ROLES WITH USERS AS COMMANDS;          // adds GRANT ROLE ... TO user
SHOW ROLES WITH AUTH RULES AS COMMANDS;     // adds GRANT ROLE ... TO AUTH RULE

3. Privilege Decision Table

DENY overrides GRANT

// Analyst can read Person but NOT the ssn property
GRANT MATCH {*} ON GRAPH mydb NODES Person TO analyst;
DENY  READ {ssn} ON GRAPH mydb NODES Person TO analyst;

REVOKE removes a specific grant or deny

REVOKE GRANT READ {email} ON GRAPH mydb NODES Person FROM analyst;
REVOKE DENY  READ {ssn}   ON GRAPH mydb NODES Person FROM analyst;
REVOKE MATCH {*} ON GRAPH mydb NODES Person FROM analyst;  // removes both grant+deny

4. Common Role Patterns

Read-only analyst

CREATE ROLE analyst IF NOT EXISTS;
GRANT ACCESS            ON DATABASE mydb TO analyst;
GRANT MATCH {*}         ON GRAPH mydb ELEMENTS * TO analyst;
GRANT EXECUTE PROCEDURE apoc.* TO analyst;

Write role (no admin)

CREATE ROLE writer IF NOT EXISTS;
GRANT ACCESS  ON DATABASE mydb TO writer;
GRANT MATCH {*} ON GRAPH mydb ELEMENTS * TO writer;
GRANT WRITE   ON GRAPH mydb TO writer;

Read-only on specific labels only

CREATE ROLE limited_reader IF NOT EXISTS;
GRANT ACCESS    ON DATABASE mydb TO limited_reader;
GRANT TRAVERSE  ON GRAPH mydb ELEMENTS * TO limited_reader;      // can traverse
GRANT MATCH {*} ON GRAPH mydb NODES Person TO limited_reader;    // Person props visible
GRANT MATCH {*} ON GRAPH mydb NODES Company TO limited_reader;   // Company props visible
// Other labels: traversable but properties invisible

DBA role (full admin)

CREATE ROLE dba IF NOT EXISTS;
GRANT ALL ON DBMS     TO dba;
GRANT ALL ON DATABASE * TO dba;

5. Property-Level Access Control (Enterprise)

Restrict read access to individual properties:

// Grant read on all Person props, then deny sensitive ones
GRANT MATCH {*}   ON GRAPH mydb NODES Person TO analyst;
DENY  READ {ssn, dateOfBirth} ON GRAPH mydb NODES Person TO analyst;

Property-based pattern matching (sub-graph access):

// Only see Person nodes where classification = 'public'
GRANT MATCH {*} ON GRAPH mydb
  FOR (n:Person) WHERE n.classification = 'public'
  TO analyst;

// Block access to classified nodes
DENY MATCH {*} ON GRAPH mydb
  FOR (n) WHERE n.classification <> 'UNCLASSIFIED'
  TO regularUsers;

// List-valued property contains a value [2026.08, Cypher 25]
GRANT MATCH {*} ON GRAPH mydb