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Concept

Org Owner

The organisation-wide admin role: full visibility and control of teams, members, and ownership.

01 · Definition

Definition

Org Owner (org_owner in user_roles) is the strongest role in an organisation. It is org-scoped (team_id is null), not team-scoped. The owner can manage teams, change member roles, invite people, resolve join requests, and transfer ownership.

Avoid: admin, superuser, account owner (use Org Owner for the product role).

02 · Role

Role

Org Owner is orthogonal to Lead / Knight: ownership is tenancy; Lead/Knight are commitment-side roles on a Shrubbery. An owner may also be a Lead on rows they assign, and a Knight on rows assigned to them.

Capabilities that require owner:

  • Rename the organisation; create, rename, delete (empty) teams.
  • Promote or demote between team_lead and team_member on a team.
  • Transfer ownership to another member (moves organizations.created_by and the org_owner row together).
  • Accept or refuse join requests from people outside the org.

On signup that creates a new org, the user is Org Owner (and typically team_lead on the default team). Users who join via invite start as team_member.

03 · Lifecycle

Lifecycle

  • Granted — at org creation (self-serve signup) or via ownership transfer.
  • Active — one primary owner model; transfer hands the role to another user.
  • Not team-scoped — no team_id on the role row; team leads are separate.
04 · Related

Last updated: 24 July 2026