Scope the provisioning existing-user check to unique attributes

[Sadeesha-Sath]

Purpose

Scope the provisioning executor's existing-user check to the attributes the schema declares unique, and stop it from producing false negatives or false positives.

Before this change, Execute passed the full set of identifying attributes to IdentifyUser as one combined (AND'd) filter. That was wrong in multiple ways:

• A provisioning attempt that changed any non-unique attribute (for example username when only email is unique) missed the existing user entirely, so the flow fell through to CreateUser and surfaced a raw store constraint violation instead of ErrUserAlreadyExists.
• A single combined filter can only ever report the first attribute it happens to check; if username is free but email is already taken, an AND'd lookup finds nothing and lets the conflict through to the store.
• A user type declaring no unique attributes still paid for a lookup that could never legitimately match, even though nothing about such a user can conflict.
• A user already resolved earlier in the flow (a pre-linked federated account, or a user ID an earlier node placed in runtime data) was re-looked-up by attributes instead of reused, which can pick a different user than the one already resolved.

Approach

getAttributesForProvisioning returns a third map, uniqueAttrs: the subset of identifying attributes whose schema AttributeInfo.Unique is set. That map, not the full identifying set, drives the existing-user check.

The identify and cross-OU ambiguity-resolution logic moves out of Execute into a new identifyExistingUser helper:

1. It first checks GetUserIDFromContext (the executor base's existing helper, already used elsewhere for account-linking), which returns a pre-resolved user, either a user ID an earlier node placed in runtime data, or the entity resolved via federated account linking. If found, that user is used as-is and no attribute lookup happens at all.
2. Otherwise, with no unique attributes it returns immediately; nothing can conflict.
3. Otherwise it looks up each unique attribute individually (one IdentifyUser call per attribute, sorted by name for a stable result) instead of combining them into one AND'd filter. ErrUserNotFound on one attribute just means that value is free; the loop continues to the next attribute. The first attribute that resolves to a user (or triggers cross-OU ambiguity resolution) wins; any other error aborts immediately.

Key points:

• Uniqueness is still enforced by the store on create. This lookup exists only to report the conflict before the write, so registration flows can re-prompt rather than fail.
• Credential attributes are never part of uniqueAttrs and never checked.
• No change to what gets written: identifyingAttrs and credentialAttrs still supply the full attribute set for CreateUser.

Related Issues

• Closes Scope the Existing User Identification in Provisioning Executor to Unique Attributes #5279
• Support Multiple Federated IDP Account Linking to a Local User Account #5218
• Fixes Federated sign-in fails at provisioning because ProvisioningExecutor re-identifies the user instead of using the account-linking result #4590

Related PRs

• N/A

Checklist

• Followed the contribution guidelines.
• Manual test round performed and verified.
• Documentation provided. (Add links if there are any)
  • Provisioning executor: how existing users are detected
  • User type reference: unique modifier
  • Ran Vale and fixed all errors and warnings
• Tests provided. (Add links if there are any)
  • Unit Tests
  • Integration Tests
• Breaking changes. (Fill if applicable)
  • Breaking changes section filled.
  • breaking change label added.

New unit tests in provisioning_executor_test.go:

• TestExecute_NoUniqueAttributes_SkipsIdentify - a user type with no unique attributes provisions without any IdentifyEntity call.
• TestExecute_OnlyUniqueAttributesIdentify - the lookup filters on the unique attribute alone, so a changed non-unique attribute no longer causes it to miss an existing user.
• TestExecute_ConflictOnSecondUniqueAttribute - each unique attribute is looked up on its own; a free first attribute doesn't mask a taken second one.
• TestExecute_ResolvedEntityReference_SkipsIdentify - a user already resolved through federated account linking is reused as-is, even if a second connection reports a different username.
• TestExecute_PreResolvedUserIDInRuntimeData_SkipsIdentify - a user ID an earlier flow node placed in runtime data is used without an attribute lookup.

Security checks

• Followed secure coding standards in WSO2 Secure Coding Guidelines
• Confirmed that this PR doesn't commit any keys, passwords, tokens, usernames, or other secrets.

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Provisioning now separates schema-declared unique attributes from other identifying attributes. Existing-user lookup uses each unique attribute, skips lookup when none exist, and reuses resolved federated users. Tests and documentation cover the updated behavior.

Changes

Provisioning unique-attribute lookup

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Collect schema-declared unique attributes backend/internal/flow/executor/provisioning_executor.go, backend/internal/flow/executor/provisioning_executor_test.go	getAttributesForProvisioning returns uniqueAttrs separately. Existing callers and tests capture the additional return value.
Identify existing users with unique attributes backend/internal/flow/executor/provisioning_executor.go	Execute uses identifyExistingUser. The method reuses resolved users, skips lookup without unique attributes, queries attributes in sorted order, and preserves ambiguity handling.
Validate provisioning identification behavior backend/internal/flow/executor/provisioning_executor_test.go	Tests cover unique-attribute filtering, skipped lookups, resolved federated users, per-attribute conflicts, user-service delegation, and propagated service errors.
Document unique-attribute detection docs/content/guides/flows/advanced-configurations.mdx, docs/content/guides/users/user-type-reference.mdx	The documentation describes unique-attribute matching during provisioning, credential exclusion, no-unique-attribute behavior, and user-store uniqueness validation.

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~25 minutes

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to 2ba06

Provisioning now checks only schema-declared unique attributes when detecting existing users, avoiding misses caused by non-unique attribute changes. The behavior is documented and no current merge-readiness risk remains.

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant Execute
  participant getAttributesForProvisioning
  participant identifyExistingUser
  participant IdentifyUser
  Execute->>getAttributesForProvisioning: collect uniqueAttrs
  Execute->>identifyExistingUser: identify with uniqueAttrs
  identifyExistingUser->>IdentifyUser: query each unique attribute
  IdentifyUser-->>identifyExistingUser: identity result or ambiguity
  identifyExistingUser-->>Execute: resolved identity or provisioning error

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Suggested reviewers: dilusha-madushan, nutharanr

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	The changes satisfy issue [#5279] by limiting existing-user identification to schema-declared unique attributes, skipping identification when none exist, and preserving full attributes for provisionin…
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	The code, tests, and documentation changes directly support the unique-attribute provisioning identification objective. No unrelated changes are evident.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 0 functions across 2…
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly and concisely summarizes the main change: limiting provisioning existing-user checks to schema-declared unique attributes.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description follows the repository template and explains the purpose, implementation approach, related issues, tests, documentation, and security checks. Unchecked manual testing, Vale, and integr…

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Actionable comments posted: 1

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Inline comments:
In `@backend/internal/flow/executor/provisioning_executor.go`:
- Line 135: Update
backend/internal/flow/executor/provisioning_executor.go:135-135 documentation
coverage by adding a provisioning guide under docs/content/guides/ explaining
that identifyExistingUser matches existing users only from supplied
schema-declared unique attributes. Update
backend/internal/flow/executor/provisioning_executor.go:634-637 and
docs/content/apis.mdx to document how the schema Unique attribute affects
provisioning conflict detection.

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Inline comments:
In `@backend/internal/flow/executor/provisioning_executor.go`:
- Line 216: Replace the resolvedEntityID call in the provisioning executor with
p.GetUserIDFromContext(ctx, execResp, authnProvider), preserving RuntimeData
user-ID resolution before entity-reference fallback. Add a regression test
covering resolution when only ctx.RuntimeData[userAttributeUserID] is set.

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