SCIM Spec Graph

A graph of the SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) specifications and their references.

Overview

This repository provides a visual representation of how various SCIM specifications relate to and depend on each other. Understanding these relationships is essential for developers implementing identity management systems and integrations.

SCIM is a standardized approach for automating the exchange of user identity information between identity domains and service providers. The specifications covered here form the core of modern cloud-based identity management.

Specifications Covered

Core SCIM Suite

• RFC 7642: System for Cross-domain Identity Management: Definitions, Overview, Concepts, and Requirements

  • Provides the foundational definitions, high-level overview, and essential concepts for SCIM
  • Explains rationale, system concepts, data models, flows, scenarios, use cases, and requirements

• RFC 7643: System for Cross-domain Identity Management: Core Schema

  • Defines SCIM resource types (User, Group) and their attributes
  • Specifies JSON-based schemas for representing users, groups, and extensions
  • Provides a platform-neutral data model suitable for cloud providers

• RFC 7644: System for Cross-domain Identity Management: Protocol

  • Formalizes the RESTful protocol for SCIM
  • Details HTTP operations (CRUD) and patterns for managing SCIM resources
  • Specifies endpoints, request/response formats, filtering, pagination, and bulk operations

Extensions

• RFC 9865: Cursor-Based Pagination of SCIM Resources
  • Extends RFC 7643 and RFC 7644
  • Defines cursor-based pagination for SCIM queries and results
  • Improves performance and efficiency for large-scale scenarios

The Graph

See Graph.md for the visual representation of how these specifications relate to each other.

Why This Matters

When implementing SCIM in your applications:

• Understanding RFC 7642 helps you grasp the overall concepts and requirements
• RFC 7643 tells you how to structure your user and group data
• RFC 7644 shows you how to build the API endpoints and operations
• RFC 9865 provides modern pagination capabilities for scalability

The relationships between these specifications matter because:

• You can't implement the protocol (RFC 7644) without understanding the schema (RFC 7643)
• Both protocol and schema are based on the concepts in RFC 7642
• RFC 9865 builds on top of both schema and protocol to add advanced features

License

This project is released under the Unlicense, placing it in the public domain.