FAQ

Is Seclude free?

Yes. There is one edition and nothing is held back.

Can Seclude give someone access Craft wouldn't?

No, and it is built so it can't. Every decision Seclude makes is refuse or no opinion, never permit. A user still needs Craft's own permission for a section. Seclude only narrows how much of it they reach.

That is also what makes it safe to install on a live site. Switching it on can't widen anybody's access, and switching it off can't leave anything locked.

Does installing it change anything?

No. Nothing is restricted until you write a policy, and a policy only affects the sections it names.

How is this different from restricting by entry type?

The other Craft 5 plugins in this space restrict by entry type, which is still a container: every entry of that type, or none. Seclude goes down to the individual entry, so Jane may edit these three News entries, or the entries in her region, or the ones she wrote.

I used Isolate. Is this a replacement?

Yes. trendyminds/isolate was Craft 3/4 only and was retired in February 2024. Seclude covers what it did — per-entry assignment with a filtered index — and adds rules, so you don't have to hand-assign everything. Existing assignments need a short script to move across; there's no automatic migration.

Does it work with categories, assets and users?

Yes. A policy can govern entries, categories, assets or users, narrowed to particular sections, category groups, volumes or user groups.

Can an editor suggest changes without publishing them?

Yes. Give them Propose changes without Edit. They can draft anything they are granted, and somebody else publishes it.

Will refused entries still show up in the entry index?

No. Indexes, counts, exports and relation-field pickers are filtered, so a refused entry's title doesn't appear. Two places can still show a title: the Recent Entries dashboard widget, and an element chip requested directly by its ID.

Does it affect the front end?

No. Seclude governs authoring in the control panel. Front-end templates can ask craft.seclude.can() if they want the same answer.

Can a department head hand out work without being an admin?

Yes, with Assign elements to other users. They can only hand over an element if they hold every ability the policy grants on it themselves, and they can't assign anything to themselves.

What if I lock everyone out?

Admins aren't restricted by default, and php craft seclude/policies/panic switches every policy off from the console. See Troubleshooting.

Do policies deploy?

Yes. Policies are project config, so they deploy with the sections they govern. Hand-picked assignments stay in the database, because an element ID refers to a different element on every environment.