Using OPA as a Unified Access Proxy

Open Policy Agent (OPA) changes this. As a Unified Access Proxy, it becomes the single checkpoint for every request—across microservices, APIs, and infrastructure. No more duplicated logic. No more mismatched rules.

OPA lets you write policies once in Rego, its declarative language. These policies are portable. They run anywhere: sidecar, daemon, or embedded library. As a Unified Access Proxy, OPA sits in the request path, evaluating permissions before actions happen. It standardizes enforcement for HTTP, gRPC, Kubernetes admission, service mesh gateways, and more.

The architecture is simple but strict. Requests hit the proxy. OPA checks context—user identity, resource, action, environment. Rego policies return allow or deny. The decision is instant and consistent. Integrations with Envoy, NGINX, or custom reverse proxies make deployment flexible. Every layer uses the same ruleset.

This model eliminates policy fragmentation. You avoid the overhead of syncing configs across multiple services. Auditing is straightforward because logs come from a single decision point. Policy updates roll out without touching application code.

Security teams gain control. Developers maintain speed. Compliance moves from reactive to proactive. You own the rules, the enforcement, and the traceability.

Using OPA as a Unified Access Proxy is not complex—it is precise. It replaces ad-hoc checks with centralized governance. It scales with your system because policies load once and run fast.

You can see an OPA-based Unified Access Proxy running in minutes. Go to hoop.dev and launch it now.