Core Data selector canUser does not handle entity records

[TimothyBJacobs]

Description

The @wordpress/core-data module provides a selector canUser( action, resource, id ) that can interrogate whether a user has permission to perform the given CRUD action for the given resource and optionally a specific record.

For example, to check whether the user can update a page with the id of 5, you can perform the following check.

select( 'core' ).canUser( 'update', 'pages', 5 )

Unfortuantely, this method only supports resources that are in the wp/v2 namespace. Additionally, it requires you to know the final REST API path. Typically, however, only an entity kind and name are known.

There currently exists a canUserEntityRecord selector, but it is only a wrapper for canUser and does not Post Type entity records. Additionally, it only supports Post Types that have the wp/v2 namespace which is not a requirement since WP 5.9.

https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/1d778aa5e7506390c4d1a89974ec69088026855a/packages/core-data/src/selectors.ts#L996-L1009

I think canUserEntityRecord should be adapted to actually perform the permission handling logic utilizing the baseURL property of the entity config. Then canUser would be deprecated.

Step-by-step reproduction instructions

1. Register a custom post type with a custom namespace.

register_post_type( 'custom-ns', [
    'public'         => true,
    'show_in_rest'   => true,
    'rest_namespace' => 'my/namespace',
    'supports'       => [ 'editor', 'title', 'custom-fields' ],
] );

2. Call the canUser selector via the browser console.

wp.data.select('core').canUser('create', 'custom-ns');

Screenshots, screen recording, code snippet

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Environment info

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Please confirm that you have searched existing issues in the repo.

Yes

Please confirm that you have tested with all plugins deactivated except Gutenberg.

Yes

[Mamaduka]

Thanks for creating the issue.

I think we might want to keep canUser around for a while. The new recommended selector will require resources to be registered as custom entities; currently, we don't have an easy way of doing that. See #27859.

The canUserEditEntityRecord selector implies the action. We might need a better name here. Maybe hasPermssionsTo? Matches the new hook @adamziel stabilized recently - #43268.

[TimothyBJacobs]

I think we might want to keep canUser around for a while. The new recommended selector will require resources to be registered as custom entities; currently, we don't have an easy way of doing that. See https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27859.

I think most custom entities would be using a non wp/v2 namespace, so they wouldn't be able to leverage canUser anyways. But keeping it around seems fine too.

The canUserEditEntityRecord selector implies the action. We might need a better name here. Maybe hasPermssionsTo? Matches the new hook @adamziel stabilized recently - https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/43268.

I like that a lot too.

[adamziel]

@Mamaduka we can't rename it, as it is a part of the public API, but we can create a new one and deprecate the old one. How about hasEntityRecordPermissions?

[Mamaduka]

@adamziel, right. We should deprecate the canUserEditEntityRecord selector and introduce the new one.

[Mamaduka]

I just want to cross-link the "Short-circuit HEAD methods in Core controllers" core ticket. When it's available in core, I think it would be a nice addition to the new selector/resolver.