In modern organizations, managing user access, team structures, and permissions is a constant, complex task. Onboarding a new employee can involve a dozen manual steps across different systems. Offboarding is a race against time to plug security holes. And reorganizing a team? That often means a cascade of tedious updates that are prone to human error.
What if you could manage your entire organizational structure the same way you manage your cloud infrastructure? What if your org chart could be version-controlled, peer-reviewed, and automated?
This is the revolutionary idea behind Directory as Code. It’s a paradigm shift that applies the principles of DevOps and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to the world of human resources and IT. And platforms like directory.do are making it a reality.
For decades, organizational directories have been managed through graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and manual processes. This approach is fraught with challenges:
Directory as Code treats your organizational directory—users, reporting lines, teams, and group memberships—as a declarative, versionable asset. Instead of clicking through menus, you define your entire org chart in configuration files or via a developer-friendly API.
Think of it like this: your organization's structure becomes a source-controlled blueprint.
Here’s what a piece of that blueprint might look like using the directory.do API:
{
"user": {
"id": "usr_1a2b3c4d5e6f7g8h",
"name": "Alice Johnson",
"email": "alice.j@example.com",
"title": "Director of Engineering",
"status": "active",
"manager": {
"id": "usr_9i8j7k6l5m4n3o2p"
},
"groups": [
"engineering-leads",
"all-employees"
]
}
}
This simple JSON object clearly defines a user, their role, their manager, and the groups they belong to. When this code is updated—say, in a Git repository—automated workflows can execute the necessary changes across all your integrated systems.
Adopting a Directory as Code approach unlocks powerful benefits for security, efficiency, and scalability.
With your directory defined as code, you can build agentic workflows to handle routine tasks.
By defining your directory in a central, code-based repository, you eliminate data drift and inconsistency. Whether you sync from an existing identity provider like Google Workspace or Azure AD, or use directory.do as your source of truth, all your connected services operate from the same, accurate data.
Every change to your organizational structure can be tracked, reviewed, and audited.
Using a powerful user management API empowers developers and IT teams to build custom integrations and streamline internal processes. They can programmatically manage access control, automate team creation, and integrate directory information directly into internal applications, saving time and reducing reliance on manual intervention.
directory.do is a platform built from the ground up to enable the Directory as Code workflow. It provides the core components you need to engineer, not just manage, your organization.
The era of manual directory management is coming to an end. It's too slow, too risky, and too inefficient for the dynamic needs of a modern business. By embracing Directory as Code, you can bring the speed, safety, and automation of DevOps to the very structure of your organization.
Ready to manage your organizational directory with the power and simplicity of code?