Why does the FFLIB framework enforce CRUD security and sharing rules by default for Domains?

Question

In FFLIB, a Domain enforces CRUD security and sharing rules by default. We use FFLIB Domains for implementing triggers. In the Salesforce standard, triggers run in system context, meaning they don't enforce CRUD security, and don't enforce sharing rules if "with sharing" is omitted from the class declaration. In almost every use case, we want to keep the Salesforce standard behaviour. For that, we reflected on the fact that triggers are fix business processes running in the background. They should run through regardless of what permissions the current user has. In addition, the user is often not even aware of these processes, so a trigger run that fails due to missing permissions would lead to an error message quite confusing to the user. So we are considering to patch fflib_SObjectDomain in our org to not enforce the permissions by default.

Our discussion lead us to the question: why does the FFLIB framework enforce CRUD security and sharing rules by default for Domains?

Your answer is highly appreciated and helps us, and the community, to better understand the security implications of the framework.

Best regards,

Daniel Wutz

Answer 1

I believe the answer is the fflib was originally designed for the ISV world where such checks are desired. By having all your domain classes inherit from an intermediary class, say ApplicationDomain that extends fflib_SObjectDomain, you can switch off the CRUD checking in one spot.

This is covered in Salesforce Lightning Platform Enterprise Architecture 3rd Edition page 210:

public inherited sharing abstract class ApplicationDomain extends fflib_SObjectDomain {
  public ApplicationDomain(SObject[] records) {
    super(records);
    Configuration.disableTriggersCRUDSecurity();
  }
}

and each domain class (here, Contestants) looks like:

public inherited sharing class Contestants extends ApplicationDomain {
  public Contestants(Contestant__c[] contestants) {
   super(contestants);
  }
}

If you are using fflib and do not have this book, stop what you are doing and buy it as it is full of tips for getting the most out of fflib.