Coder powers secure, scalable development across key industries — automotive, finance, government, and technology — enabling faster builds, tighter compliance, and seamless AI adoption in enterprise-grade cloud environments.
A user may have one or more roles. All users have an implicit Member role that
may use personal workspaces.
Security notes
A malicious Template Admin could write a template that executes commands on the
host (or coder server container), which potentially escalates their privileges
or shuts down the Coder server. To avoid this, run
external provisioners.
In low-trust environments, we do not recommend giving users direct access to
edit templates. Instead, use
CI/CD pipelines to update templates with
proper security scans and code reviews in place.
User status
Coder user accounts can have different status types: active, dormant, and
suspended.
Active user
An active user account in Coder is the default and desired state for all
users. When a user's account is marked as active, they have complete access to
the Coder platform and can utilize all of its features and functionalities
without any limitations. Active users can access workspaces, templates, and
interact with Coder using CLI.
Dormant user
A user account is set to dormant status when they have not yet logged in, or
have not logged into the Coder platform for the past 90 days. Once the user logs
in to the platform, the account status will switch to active.
Dormant accounts do not count towards the total number of licensed seats in a
Coder subscription, allowing organizations to optimize their license usage.
Suspended user
When a user's account is marked as suspended in Coder, it means that the
account has been temporarily deactivated, and the user is unable to access the
platform.
Only user administrators or owners have the necessary permissions to manage
suspended accounts and decide whether to lift the suspension and allow the user
back into the Coder environment. This level of control ensures that
administrators can enforce security measures and handle any compliance-related
issues promptly.
Similar to dormant users, suspended users do not count towards the total number
of licensed seats.
Create a user
To create a user with the web UI:
Log in as a user admin.
Go to Users > New user.
In the window that opens, provide the username, email, and
password for the user (they can opt to change their password after their
initial login).
Click Submit to create the user.
The new user will appear in the Users list. Use the toggle to change their
Roles if desired.
To create a user via the Coder CLI, run:
coder users create
When prompted, provide the username and email for the new user.
You'll receive a response that includes the following; share the instructions
with the user so that they can log into Coder:
Download the Coder command line for your operating system:
https://github.com/coder/coder/releases/latest
Run coder login https://<accessURL>.coder.app to authenticate.
Your email is: [email protected]
Your password is: <redacted>
Create a workspace coder create !
Suspend a user
User admins can suspend a user, removing the user's access to Coder.
To suspend a user via the web UI:
Go to Users.
Find the user you want to suspend, click the vertical ellipsis to the right,
and click Suspend.
In the confirmation dialog, click Suspend.
To suspend a user via the CLI, run:
coder users suspend <username|user_id>
Confirm the user suspension by typing yes and pressing enter.
Activate a suspended user
User admins can activate a suspended user, restoring their access to Coder.
To activate a user via the web UI:
Go to Users.
Find the user you want to activate, click the vertical ellipsis to the right,
and click Activate.
In the confirmation dialog, click Activate.
To activate a user via the CLI, run:
coder users activate <username|user_id>
Confirm the user activation by typing yes and pressing enter.
Reset a password
To reset a user's via the web UI:
Go to Users.
Find the user whose password you want to reset, click the vertical ellipsis
to the right, and select Reset password.
Coder displays a temporary password that you can send to the user; copy the
password and click Reset password.
Coder will prompt the user to change their temporary password immediately after
logging in.
You can also reset a password via the CLI:
# run `coder reset-password <username> --help` for usage instructions
coder reset-password <username>
Resetting a user's password, e.g., the initial owner role-based user, only
works when run on the host running the Coder control plane.
In the Coder UI, you can filter your users using pre-defined filters or by
utilizing the Coder's filter query. The examples provided below demonstrate how
to use the Coder's filter query:
To find active users, use the filter status:active.
To find admin users, use the filter role:admin.
To find users have not been active since July 2023:
status:active last_seen_before:"2023-07-01T00:00:00Z"
The following filters are supported:
status - Indicates the status of the user. It can be either active,
dormant or suspended.
role - Represents the role of the user. You can refer to the
TemplateRole documentation
for a list of supported user roles.
last_seen_before and last_seen_after - The last time a used has used the
platform (e.g. logging in, any API requests, connecting to workspaces). Uses
the RFC3339Nano format.
