Tutorial: Assign roles to service principals (preview)

[This article is prerelease documentation and is subject to change.]

Role-based access control (RBAC) in Power Platform lets administrators assign built-in roles to users, groups, and service principals at the tenant, environment group, or environment scope. This tutorial walks through a common automation scenario: assigning the Contributor role to a service principal at the tenant scope using the Authorization API.

To learn more about RBAC concepts, built-in roles, and scope inheritance, see Role-based access control for Power Platform admin center.

Important

• This is a preview feature.
• Preview features aren’t meant for production use and might have restricted functionality. These features are subject to supplemental terms of use, and are available before an official release so that customers can get early access and provide feedback.

In this tutorial, you'll learn to:

• Authenticate with the Power Platform API.
• List available role definitions.
• Create a role assignment for a service principal at the tenant scope.
• Verify the role assignment.

Prerequisites

• A Microsoft Entra app registration configured for the Power Platform API, with a certificate or client secret for service principal authentication. For guidance, see Authentication.
• The Enterprise Application Object ID for the service principal (found in Microsoft Entra ID > Enterprise applications).
• The calling identity must have the Power Platform Administrator or Power Platform role-based access control administrator role.

Built-in role definitions

Power Platform provides four built-in roles that can be assigned via RBAC. Each role has a fixed set of permissions and can be assigned at the tenant, environment group, or environment scope.

Role name	Role ID	Permissions
Power Platform owner	0cb07c69-1631-4725-ab35-e59e001c51ea	All permissions
Power Platform contributor	ff954d61-a89a-4fbe-ace9-01c367b89f87	Manage and read all resources, but can't make or change role assignments
Power Platform reader	c886ad2e-27f7-4874-8381-5849b8d8a090	Read-only access to all resources
Power Platform role-based access control administrator	95e94555-018c-447b-8691-bdac8e12211e	Read all resources + manage role assignments

Step 1. List available role definitions

First, authenticate and retrieve the available role definitions to confirm the contributor role ID.

PowerShell

# Install the Az.Accounts module if not already installed
Install-Module -Name Az.Accounts

# Set your tenant ID
$TenantId = "YOUR_TENANT_ID"

# Authenticate and obtain an access token
Connect-AzAccount
$AccessToken = Get-AzAccessToken -TenantId $TenantId -ResourceUrl "https://api.powerplatform.com/"

$headers = @{ 'Authorization' = 'Bearer ' + $AccessToken.Token }
$headers.Add('Content-Type', 'application/json')

# List all role definitions
$roleDefinitions = Invoke-RestMethod -Method Get -Uri "https://api.powerplatform.com/authorization/roleDefinitions?api-version=2024-10-01" -Headers $headers

$roleDefinitions.value | Format-Table roleDefinitionName, roleDefinitionId

Expected output:

roleDefinitionName                                          roleDefinitionId
------------------                                          ----------------
Power Platform owner                                        0cb07c69-1631-4725-ab35-e59e001c51ea
Power Platform contributor                                  ff954d61-a89a-4fbe-ace9-01c367b89f87
Power Platform reader                                       c886ad2e-27f7-4874-8381-5849b8d8a090
Power Platform role-based access control administrator      95e94555-018c-447b-8691-bdac8e12211e

C#

using Microsoft.PowerPlatform.Management;
using Microsoft.PowerPlatform.Management.Models;

var client = ServiceClientFactory.Create(clientId);

// List all role definitions
var roleDefinitions = await client.Authorization.RoleDefinitions.GetAsync();

foreach (var role in roleDefinitions.Value)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"{role.RoleDefinitionName}: {role.RoleDefinitionId}");
}

Expected output:

Power Platform owner: 0cb07c69-1631-4725-ab35-e59e001c51ea
Power Platform contributor: ff954d61-a89a-4fbe-ace9-01c367b89f87
Power Platform reader: c886ad2e-27f7-4874-8381-5849b8d8a090
Power Platform role-based access control administrator: 95e94555-018c-447b-8691-bdac8e12211e

Python

import asyncio
from azure.identity import InteractiveBrowserCredential
from kiota_authentication_azure.azure_identity_authentication_provider import AzureIdentityAuthenticationProvider
from kiota_http.httpx_request_adapter import HttpxRequestAdapter
from mspp_management.service_client_base import ServiceClientBase

credential = InteractiveBrowserCredential()
auth_provider = AzureIdentityAuthenticationProvider(
    credential,
    scopes=["https://api.powerplatform.com/.default"]
)
adapter = HttpxRequestAdapter(auth_provider)
adapter.base_url = "https://api.powerplatform.com"
client = ServiceClientBase(adapter)

# List all role definitions
role_definitions = await client.authorization.role_definitions.get()

for role in role_definitions.value:
    print(f"{role.role_definition_name}: {role.role_definition_id}")

Expected output:

Power Platform owner: 0cb07c69-1631-4725-ab35-e59e001c51ea
Power Platform contributor: ff954d61-a89a-4fbe-ace9-01c367b89f87
Power Platform reader: c886ad2e-27f7-4874-8381-5849b8d8a090
Power Platform role-based access control administrator: 95e94555-018c-447b-8691-bdac8e12211e

Power Platform API reference: Role-Based Access Control - List Role Definitions

Step 2. Assign the Contributor role to a service principal

Create a role assignment that grants the Power Platform contributor role to a service principal at the tenant scope. Replace YOUR_TENANT_ID with your tenant GUID and YOUR_ENTERPRISE_APP_OBJECT_ID with the enterprise application object ID from Microsoft Entra ID.

PowerShell

$TenantId = "YOUR_TENANT_ID"
$EnterpriseAppObjectId = "YOUR_ENTERPRISE_APP_OBJECT_ID"

$body = @{
    roleDefinitionId = "ff954d61-a89a-4fbe-ace9-01c367b89f87"
    principalObjectId = $EnterpriseAppObjectId
    principalType = "ApplicationUser"
    scope = "/tenants/$TenantId"
} | ConvertTo-Json

$roleAssignment = Invoke-RestMethod -Method Post -Uri "https://api.powerplatform.com/authorization/roleAssignments?api-version=2024-10-01" -Headers $headers -Body $body

$roleAssignment

Expected output:

roleAssignmentId   : a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890
principalObjectId  : <your-enterprise-app-object-id>
roleDefinitionId   : ff954d61-a89a-4fbe-ace9-01c367b89f87
scope              : /tenants/<your-tenant-id>
principalType      : ApplicationUser
createdOn          : 2026-03-02T12:00:00.0000000+00:00

C#

var request = new RoleAssignmentRequest
{
    RoleDefinitionId = "ff954d61-a89a-4fbe-ace9-01c367b89f87",
    PrincipalObjectId = "YOUR_ENTERPRISE_APP_OBJECT_ID",
    PrincipalType = "ApplicationUser",
    Scope = "/tenants/YOUR_TENANT_ID"
};

var roleAssignment = await client.Authorization.RoleAssignments.PostAsync(request);

Console.WriteLine($"Assignment ID: {roleAssignment.Value[0].RoleAssignmentId}");
Console.WriteLine($"Scope: {roleAssignment.Value[0].Scope}");
Console.WriteLine($"Principal: {roleAssignment.Value[0].PrincipalObjectId}");

Python

from mspp_management.models.role_assignment_request import RoleAssignmentRequest

request = RoleAssignmentRequest(
    role_definition_id="ff954d61-a89a-4fbe-ace9-01c367b89f87",
    principal_object_id="YOUR_ENTERPRISE_APP_OBJECT_ID",
    principal_type="ApplicationUser",
    scope="/tenants/YOUR_TENANT_ID",
)

role_assignment = await client.authorization.role_assignments.post(request)

print(f"Assignment ID: {role_assignment.value[0].role_assignment_id}")
print(f"Scope: {role_assignment.value[0].scope}")
print(f"Principal: {role_assignment.value[0].principal_object_id}")

Power Platform API reference: Role-Based Access Control - Create Role Assignment

Step 3. Verify the role assignment

Retrieve all role assignments to confirm the new assignment exists.

PowerShell

$roleAssignments = Invoke-RestMethod -Method Get -Uri "https://api.powerplatform.com/authorization/roleAssignments?api-version=2024-10-01" -Headers $headers

# Filter for the service principal's assignments
$roleAssignments.value | Where-Object { $_.principalObjectId -eq $EnterpriseAppObjectId } | Format-Table roleAssignmentId, roleDefinitionId, scope, principalType

Expected output:

roleAssignmentId                        roleDefinitionId                        scope                          principalType
----------------                        ----------------                        -----                          -------------
a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890    ff954d61-a89a-4fbe-ace9-01c367b89f87    /tenants/<your-tenant-id>      ApplicationUser

C#

var roleAssignments = await client.Authorization.RoleAssignments.GetAsync();

var myAssignments = roleAssignments.Value
    .Where(a => a.PrincipalObjectId == "YOUR_ENTERPRISE_APP_OBJECT_ID");

foreach (var assignment in myAssignments)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"ID: {assignment.RoleAssignmentId}");
    Console.WriteLine($"Role: {assignment.RoleDefinitionId}");
    Console.WriteLine($"Scope: {assignment.Scope}");
    Console.WriteLine($"Type: {assignment.PrincipalType}");
}

Python

role_assignments = await client.authorization.role_assignments.get()

my_assignments = [
    a for a in role_assignments.value
    if a.principal_object_id == "YOUR_ENTERPRISE_APP_OBJECT_ID"
]

for assignment in my_assignments:
    print(f"ID: {assignment.role_assignment_id}")
    print(f"Role: {assignment.role_definition_id}")
    print(f"Scope: {assignment.scope}")
    print(f"Type: {assignment.principal_type}")

Power Platform API reference: Role Based Access Control - List Role Assignments

Related content

• Role-based access control for Power Platform admin center
• Permission reference
• Authentication - create your first app registration