Harbor for Beginners, Part 7: Add Members and Set Their Roles

Open your project to other people and decide what each one can do. The five Harbor roles explained in plain terms, how to add a member, and where new accounts actually come from.

Harbor for Beginners · Part 7 of 12

So far the project has been a one-person show. This part is about letting other people in, and deciding exactly what each of them is allowed to do. Harbor keeps this simple with a small set of roles, so most of the work here is just understanding them and picking the right one.

The five roles

Harbor has five roles, from the least powerful to the most. This table is the part worth remembering.

RoleWhat they can do
Limited GuestPull images, but with a restricted view of the project.
GuestPull images. Read-only.
DeveloperPull and push images. This is the everyday working role.
MaintainerEverything a Developer can, plus scan, delete, and manage most project settings.
Project AdminFull control, including adding members and changing the Configuration. This is you.

The rule of thumb: give each person the least they need to do their job. Most teammates only ever need Developer.

Open the Members tab

Open your project and click the Members tab. Right now there is one member, you, listed as Project Admin. This is where everyone who can touch the project lives.

The Members tab showing a single Project Admin
The Members tab. One member so far, you, as Project Admin.

Add a member

Adding someone is short:

  1. Click + User. There is a + Group next to it for adding a whole team at once.
  2. In the New Member box, type the username of someone who already has a Harbor account.
  3. Choose a Role from the list. Start people on Developer unless they need more.
  4. Click OK. They now appear in the members list with that role.
The New Member dialog showing the five role choices
The New Member dialog. Type a name, pick one of the five roles, and click OK.

Where new accounts come from

One thing trips everyone up here: the + User box only adds an account that already exists. It does not create a brand-new login. So where do new accounts come from? It depends on how your Harbor signs people in.

  1. Harbor with its own user database. A system administrator creates the account under Administration > Users. That menu only shows up for system admins, so as a Project Admin you will not see it. After the account exists, you add it here.
  2. Harbor with single sign-on (SSO). You do not create users at all. The person signs into Harbor once through SSO, which creates their account automatically. After that first login, their name shows up when you type it in the + User box.
  3. A login for a script, not a person. That one you can make yourself, right now, as Project Admin. It is called a Robot Account, and it is the subject of the next part.

If you do not have a second account to add and no admin rights to create one, that is completely fine. You can still open the + User box, see the five roles, and understand exactly how access works. The roles are the real lesson here, not the click.

Change or remove someone

People move teams and leave projects, so changing access is just as important as granting it.

  1. On the Members tab, tick the checkbox next to a member.
  2. Click Action.
  3. Pick a new role to change them, or choose Remove to take them out of the project entirely.

Quick recap

  1. Access is controlled by five roles, from Limited Guest up to Project Admin.
  2. Give each person the least they need. Developer covers most people.
  3. + User adds an account that already exists; it does not create one.
  4. New human accounts come from a system admin or from a first SSO login. New machine logins are Robot Accounts.

Harbor for Beginners, Part 7 of 12. Product names belong to their owners.

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About the Author

Dr. Pranay Jha is a Cloud and AI Consultant with 18+ years of experience in hybrid cloud, virtualization, and enterprise infrastructure transformation. He specializes in VMware technologies, multi-cloud strategy, and Generative AI solutions. He holds a PhD in Computer Applications with research focused on Cloud and AI, has published multiple research papers, and has been a VMware vExpert since 2016 and a VMUG Community Leader.

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